Porto Sudeste offers opportunity to boost mining competitiveness, Gerdau CEO says

Gerdau CEO Gustavo Werneck said that the company views Porto Sudeste as an opportunity to enhance its competitiveness in iron ore mining. As Valor previously reported, the company is structuring a joint bid with partners such as Vale for the asset, which is located in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

“We are continuing to work on an offer alongside partners, such as Vale itself. But I would say we are still a bit far from the seller making a final decision,” he told reporters after participating in a panel at the 2026 Aço Brasil Congress, currently underway in São Paulo.

When asked about a timeline for a decision this year, the executive said it is hard to tell. “When you aren’t wearing the seller’s shoes and don’t fully understand their priorities, it is very difficult,” he explained.

The executive noted that the initiative is part of an effort to secure a “logistical enabler” for the company’s iron ore expansion, though at this stage, it cannot be called a strict prerequisite for moving forward with the growth plan.

“We might reach a point where we say that without competitive logistics, allocating capital to this would be too big a risk. We are still in a study phase,” he added regarding the expansion. He also mentioned that this decision is expected within 12 months.

Werneck stated that, for now, the expansion remains an aspiration for the company, which is currently evaluating the feasibility. “We have good mining rights in traditional locations, good ore producers with significant iron content and low contaminants. So we have the first step. But logistics is—I won’t say a sine qua non, but it is highly relevant,” he added.

Next government

Werneck asserted that the top agenda for the next administration, regardless of who wins the election, should be maintaining the trade defense measures adopted for the steel industry, alongside macro issues such as tax reform.

“The NCMs need to be renewed. When the renewal period expires, that must be done,” he said, referring to the Mercosur Common Nomenclature, the codes used to standardize the identification and tax classification of goods in Brazil and other Mercosur countries. The remarks were made to reporters at the 2026 Aço Brasil Congress in São Paulo.

The executive also defended the preservation of commitments already established, such as those regarding tax reform. “There can be no rolling back of the tax reform, of what was agreed upon,” he said, pointing to discussions about revisiting past reforms that he argued have benefited industrial companies, such as the pension and labor reforms. “That was a very short-term, exceptional gain for us, but years later, what we see is a retreat from everything that was achieved,” he added.

Regarding a potential support program for the country’s steel industry—suggested by Vice President Geraldo Alckmin during the congress’s opening session—Werneck noted that the idea was raised by the government for the first time to encourage the sector, similar to measures implemented in other industries, such as the chemical sector through the Special Program for the Recovery of the Chemical Industry (Presiq).

The executive stated that the industry is open to discussing the topic, but argued that the sector’s competitiveness challenges are already well known, citing what he considers to be persistently high steel import volumes, elevated costs for natural gas and electricity, among other issues.

Source: Valor International

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