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Angelini and Matte Groups to Invest US$3 Billion This Year in the Forestry Sector, with a Strong Focus on Brazil
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Despite global uncertainty due to trade wars, Chile's leading forestry groups will continue investing in expanding their businesses. The Angelini and Matte families will disburse just over US$3 billion this year in the forestry industry through their companies Arauco and Empresas CMPC, respectively.
At least half of these resources will be allocated to Brazil, where they are driving multi-million-dollar projects to increase pulp production. In that country, besides forest land, the firms have found security and support from authorities to develop their plans more expediently, unlike in Chile, as they have acknowledged.
La Papelera
Empresas CMPC operates in 12 countries with industrial, commercial, or innovation facilities. One of these is Brazil, where it arrived in 2009 and has invested over US$6 billion. There, it produces pulp at its Guaíba plant, its largest-capacity facility, and also participates in the tissue and biopackaging businesses.
In late April 2024, the company announced the start of evaluating a plan worth over US$4.5 billion to expand pulp production in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. This is the Natureza project, which, although not yet approved by the company's board, "is in full progress, in engineering, obtaining permits, and securing more land to plant the project's forest base," stated La Papelera's president, Bernardo Larraín Matte, last Thursday upon assuming his new role.
On that occasion, CMPC announced it will invest around US$700 million this year, of which US$220 million is for pulp industrial operations, US$280 million for plantations and increasing availability in Brazil—including Natureza—US$65 million for packaging, and US$120 million for Softys.
Geographically, investments for 2025 will be distributed as 50% for Brazil, 40% to 45% for Chile, and 5% for other markets.
The Matte-owned firm has a forest estate of 1.34 million hectares, both owned and under agreements. Of these, 509,078 hectares are in Brazil, according to the company's 2024 report.
Another 741,881 hectares are located in Chile, and 94,297 hectares in Argentina.
Arauco
Empresas Copec, part of the Angelini Group, reported that this year it will invest US$3.014 billion, a 41.2% increase compared to 2024. Of this, 79.2% (around US$2.387 billion) will go to the forestry sector, and 19.1% to the energy sector.
Arauco, the group's forestry subsidiary, has production facilities in 11 countries, including Brazil, where it owns four panel plants and one resin plant.
A significant portion of the funds will go toward advancing the construction of the Sucuriú pulp project in that country. This is a US$4.6 billion investment, the largest in the company's history, whose groundbreaking took place this month. The plant will have an annual production capacity of 3.5 million tons of pulp and will be built in the city of Inocência, in Mato Grosso do Sul state.
For 2025 alone, the Sucuriú project has committed capital investments of US$1.3 billion, with US$1.8 billion planned for 2026, according to a recent presentation by Empresas Copec.
One of Arauco's first steps in Brazil was in 2005, when it acquired 100% of LD Forest Products S.A., a forestry company in Paraná state, which had 43,000 hectares of land, of which 25,800 hectares were forest plantations. Since then, the company has carried out various transactions in that country totaling around US$700 million.
Arauco has a forest estate of nearly 1.66 million hectares, of which 1.45 million hectares are owned and the rest leased, distributed across Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina, according to the company's latest report.
In Brazil, it owns only 61,428 hectares, while in Chile it controls just over one million hectares. However, in the Brazilian market, it leases 152,024 hectares, surpassing all other countries (23,527 hectares in Chile).
Source:El Mercurio
