Largest railway project in the country advances 1 km per day in Mato Grosso

The largest railway project currently under construction in the country, with investments of R$ 5 billion and around five thousand workers on-site, has reached 73% physical completion and is expected to be finished in mid-2026.

Led by Rumo, the logistics company of the Cosan group, the FMT (Ferrovia de Mato Grosso) has accelerated its pace before the rainy season and is cutting across the interior of the state at an impressive speed.

With almost all earthworks completed and most viaducts and bridges already delivered, the installation of sleepers and tracks is advancing by up to one kilometer per day.

In practice, the FMT is a 743-kilometer extension of the Malha Norte, which today receives Mato Grosso’s grain crops from a mega logistics terminal in Rondonópolis.

Trucks carrying soybeans, corn, and meal sometimes travel more than 500 kilometers from farms before loading this production onto Rumo’s trains, which cross the entire interior of São Paulo until they reach the Port of Santos (SP), in a journey that takes 76 hours.

The new railway is a megaproject financed with 100% private capital, which promises to bring the tracks of Malha Norte deep into the heart of Brazilian agribusiness, reducing the distance traveled by trucks to transport the crop and lowering freight costs for rural producers.

If Brazilian farms are already an example of competitiveness inside the gate, the FMT may reduce costs outside the gate.

“The exact gain depends on the distance. On thousand-kilometer routes, a reduction of up to 50% can be achieved compared to road freight. That means lower transportation costs for the producer, generating productivity and income for the economy as a whole,” says the national secretary of Railways, Leonardo Ribeiro.

The FMT began to be built in 2022 under a state authorization model — different from the traditional framework of a standard concession. Given the magnitude of the project, it was divided into three phases.

The first phase, from Rondonópolis to a new terminal being built between the municipalities of Dom Aquino and Campo Verde, has 162 kilometers and should begin operations in the early second half of 2026 — in time to transport Mato Grosso’s second corn crop.

“The commercial contracts are already negotiated,” says Rumo’s vice-president of regulation and institutional relations, Natália Marcassa.

Terminal BR-070 will have capacity to handle 10 million tonnes per year and will be located at the edges of the Araguaia Valley, a region considered one of the most promising in the country for the growth of grain production.

Phases 2 and 3 will take the Malha Norte tracks to Nova Mutum and Lucas do Rio Verde, respectively, but there is still no confirmed date for the start of construction. A branch to Cuiabá, also without a set date, completes the project. The engineering layouts are being refined.

When the project was conceived, Rumo spoke of total investments between R$ 14 billion and R$ 15 billion, considering all 743 kilometers of the Malha Norte extension. Now, the company prefers not to make estimates.

According to Marcassa, the board of directors is expected to decide the next steps between December and January, analyzing three points: required investments, revenue potential, and cost of capital to finance the works.

“The interest rate is a challenge for everyone investing in infrastructure in Brazil,” acknowledges the executive, while noting that Rumo is a publicly listed company on B3 with a strong rating (risk assessment).

This facilitates the issuance of debentures, including in the international market, and expands financing possibilities. Discussions are underway with BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) for another loan. And the company’s own capital also remains an option.

“We strongly believe in this project; we think it is an investment that pays off, but we would execute it more quickly if interest rates were lower.”

While the decision is pending, the progress of phase 1 impresses anyone who travels along the edges of BR-163, in southern Mato Grosso.

Two shipments of rails totaling 89 thousand tonnes arrived from China to support the works. That is equivalent to nine times the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

A sleeper factory was recently inaugurated in Rondonópolis and will remain active even after the entire railway is opened, supplying the company’s 14-thousand-kilometer network with maintenance parts.

The bridge over the Vermelho River, 460 meters long and the largest in the project’s first stage, was used by a train for the first time while the reporting team was visiting the site.

Little by little, a new route is taking shape — one that will help change the face of Brazilian logistics.

Freight cost
According to the PNL (National Logistics Plan), the share of railways in Brazil’s transportation matrix should rise from the current 17% to 35% by 2035.

“It is an ambitious but achievable objective,” says secretary Leonardo Ribeiro.

In countries with more transportation alternatives, moving cargo by rail leads to savings of 30% to 40% compared to the cost normally charged by road freight, according to Movimento Pró-Logística, linked to agribusiness organizations in Mato Grosso.

For rural producers, the extension of Malha Norte is very welcome and should reduce costs, but only to a limited extent due to the lack of other options for shipping grain to ports.

“The railways that transport grain in Brazil today are natural monopolies. So the benchmark for freight value continues to be the truck. If the truck makes the trip at R$ 100, the railway charges R$ 95 and that’s it. We need competition,” notes the executive director of Movimento Pró-Logística, Edeon Vaz.

Two other large railway projects in Mato Grosso are included in the Ministry of Transport’s project portfolio.

One is Fico (Ferrovia de Integração do Centro-Oeste), which runs from Mara Rosa (GO) to Água Boa (MT) and is already under construction. It connects with the North-South Railway. The other is Ferrogrão, between Sinop (MT) and Miritituba (PA), enabling crop flow through the so-called Northern Arc.

“When all these railways are operating, then yes, there will really be a significant drop in freight costs,” says Vaz.

Although she praises all projects that will help transport Mato Grosso’s grain in the future, Rumo’s vice-president argues that the corridor operated by the company — via the Port of Santos — will remain the most viable and competitive.

“It is the cheapest route to reach our major consumer market, which is East Asia,” says Marcassa, noting that bulk carriers are not allowed to pass through the Panama Canal.

This removes much of the appeal of the so-called Northern Arc route, she says, in addition to other risks inherent to that alternative, such as insufficient draft for vessels using waterways during the dry season. “We operate year-round and do not depend on dredging,” compares the executive.

For secretary Leonardo Ribeiro, future competition among railways will be healthy, and there is no risk of demand shortfall that could jeopardize one project or another.

“There is cargo for everybody. Studies project that Mato Grosso will have annual production of 180 million tonnes in 2050,” he concludes.

*The reporter traveled at the invitation of Rumo

Fonte: CNN

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