Ence Energía y Celulosa considers that the PSOE candidate for the mayoralty of Pontevedra, Agustín Fernández, misinforms citizens by proposing the creation of a negotiation table for the transfer of the Ence biofactory to another location, preferably in the region of Pontevedra.
The company insists, once again, that when its concession ends, it will not be able to move its Lourizán plant because there are no alternative locations in the Galician community -for example, in Pontevedra-, and because it is not economically viable.
Antonio Casal, Delegate of Ence in Galicia has reiterated that “it is not possible to build a new factory that meets the minimum profitability requirements that its viability demands. We must bear in mind that the cellulose sector is a highly competitive world market, so a factory needs costs to ensure its survival. And the necessary conditions for this, unfortunately, do not occur in Galicia,” concluded Casal.
It cans operate in this market with an existing plant with investments to maintain its competitiveness and environmental performance. But the investment in a new factory, which amounts to 700 million euros, can not be profitable: the wood in South America grows twice as fast and costs one third of what in Galicia, and labor a quarter.
Ence has justified in detail and transparently that there is no viable alternative location from a technical or economic point of view to build a new pulp mill in Galicia, and has even publicly provided the IDOM engineering report, an independent expert who so shows. All the pulp mills in the world of a size similar to that of Pontevedra are on the edge of an ocean, a river, a fjord or a river with flows such as the Rhône, the Rhine or the Paraná.
The company wants to show again that the closure of its plant in Pontevedra, and given the limitations of the Ence navia biofactory – which will not be able to grow beyond the investments that are being made and planned now – will cause the loss of employment for more than 5,100 families in Galicia. In addition, it will mean a dramatic fall in the price of wood in the Galician forestry sector leading to the ruin of thousands of producers, the abandonment of forests and, consequently, the multiplication of forest fires in the community.
