Fabio Almeida, the president of Suzano Packaging USA, has led the Brazilian company’s turnaround of Pine Bluff’s large paperboard mill since its acquisition in October 2024.
Last month, he shared a summary of the company’s financial health with Whispers.
“Suzano is a very large company and a global leader in a commodity market,” Almeida said, referring to wood pulp. “It’s very financially sound, and its profits are quite sound, though they vary a little with the price of the commodity.”
But the 101-year-old company also invests heavily, Almeida said.
“We’re talking about investments that go from $3 billion to $4 billion in terms of capital expenditures. We just had a new mill that started up last year in Brazil, and it is the most modern, largest pulp mill in the world.”
Almeida was referring to the Ribas do Rio Pardo mill, which opened last December with a capacity of 2.55 million tons of eucalyptus pulp per year, increasing Suzano’s overall production capacity by 20%.
The $4.3 billion project drew praise last month from CEO Beto Abreu.
“Even in challenging market conditions, we continued to improve our competitiveness and we remain strongly cash generative, boosted by the exceptional efficiency of our new Ribas do Rio Pardo mill,” Abreu said in a statement on third-quarter earnings. “We remain focused on further strengthening our competitiveness, deleveraging the company and unlocking value from the capital allocations made to date. The solid progress toward establishing the joint venture with Kimberly-Clark, along with the learnings and positive momentum from our packaging operations in the United States, indicate we are on the right path.”
Almeida is the key player in American packaging. “To thrive in this market we need to be very cost competitive,” Almeida told Whispers. “We’re doing that here in Arkansas.”
Sign up for Daily E-news
