Brazil Grants Preliminary Licence for CMPC’s R$27 Billion Pulp Project
Rio Grande do Sul has granted a preliminary environmental licence to CMPC’s proposed R$27 billion Natureza pulp project at Barra do Ribeiro, moving one of Brazil’s largest announced forest-industry investments into a more advanced planning stage. The decision is significant, but it is not permission to start construction.
The state environmental agency FEPAM announced the Licença Prévia on October 23, 2026. This licence accepts the project’s location and environmental concept subject to conditions. CMPC must still obtain a separate installation licence before authorized construction can begin, and later an operating licence before production.
What the licence covers
The state describes Natureza as a new bleached eucalyptus kraft pulp mill with associated forestry, energy and logistics infrastructure. The proposal includes a dedicated export terminal at the Port of Rio Grande, estimated at R$1.5 billion, plus road movements of timber and chemicals and a water connection linking the industrial site with the port.
On the state’s numbers, the port element represents about 5.6% of the project’s stated R$27 billion investment. That ratio is useful for understanding the scale of the logistics build-out, but it should not be read as a final allocation of capital: the published material does not provide a detailed expenditure breakdown or confirm that every component is inside the same budget perimeter.
The environmental design also includes black-liquor recovery to generate energy for the mill, with possible surplus electricity supplied to the grid. That is a project-design claim, not an operating result. Actual energy exports would depend on final engineering, commissioning and plant performance.
Official sources disagree on annual capacity
A material uncertainty remains in the public record. Rio Grande do Sul’s announcement describes a plant designed to produce 3.0 million tonnes of pulp a year. CMPC’s own product-stewardship page says Natureza is expected to add 2.5 million tonnes of annual short-fibre kraft pulp capacity.
The difference is 500,000 tonnes a year: the state figure is 20% higher than CMPC’s figure. Agrilinkage could not find an official reconciliation explaining whether the gap reflects an updated design, a different definition of saleable output, or a revision not yet mirrored across the documents. Until CMPC publishes a consistent final specification, both numbers should remain visible.
Using the two public capacity figures, the headline R$27 billion investment equates to roughly R$9,000 to R$10,800 for each tonne of stated annual capacity. This is an indicative scale calculation, not a construction-cost forecast: the numerator includes infrastructure beyond the production line, while the denominator itself is disputed.
CMPC has separately said its existing Guaíba operation has capacity close to 2.5 million tonnes a year and will remain open. If the new project proceeds without reducing that operation, CMPC’s combined pulp capacity in Rio Grande do Sul would be roughly 5.0 million to 5.5 million tonnes annually, depending on which Natureza figure proves correct.
Jobs are concentrated in construction
The state projects as many as 12,000 workers at the peak of construction. For the operating phase, it cites about 800 direct employees and 1,500 permanent contractors. Those figures describe different stages and should not be combined into a single permanent-employment number.
The split matters for municipalities planning housing, transport, public services and training. A temporary workforce several times larger than the eventual operating workforce can create a sharp construction-period demand surge, followed by a substantial normalization once commissioning is complete.
The project joins forest production to port capacity
Natureza is not only a mill proposal. Its economics depend on a chain that starts with eucalyptus fibre supply, passes through industrial processing and energy recovery, and ends with reliable export logistics. The dedicated port terminal is therefore central to the investment case rather than an incidental add-on.
For suppliers, the next commercial signals will include forestry sourcing plans, long-lead equipment orders, civil-works packages, power and water contracts, and terminal permitting. For communities and regulators, the central questions include traffic, water use, effluent management, habitat impacts and the geographic distribution of plantations.
The preliminary licence shows that the state considers the location and environmental concept viable under specified conditions. It does not settle those implementation questions, guarantee financing or prove that the full project will be built on the announced scale.
What happens next
CMPC must satisfy the conditions attached to the preliminary licence and apply for an installation licence before authorized construction.
The company still needs to clarify the final annual-capacity figure and publish a firm construction and commissioning schedule.
Investors and suppliers will watch for a final investment decision, financing details and major equipment or civil-works contracts.
The R$1.5 billion export-terminal component will require its own detailed execution, permitting and logistics milestones.
Forestry expansion and wood-supply arrangements will determine how much land, transport and contractor capacity the project ultimately requires.
FEPAM says the licensing process included a public hearing on January 29, 2026, attended by 1,178 people in person, with 1,376 webcast views. The agency also kept a 60-day window open for submissions. Those numbers document participation in the process; they do not indicate unanimous support or resolve every local concern.
Why this matters beyond Rio Grande do Sul
A project of this size would add a large block of market pulp capacity tied directly to Brazilian eucalyptus and Atlantic export routes. The eventual market effect will depend on timing, global demand, closures or expansions elsewhere, fibre costs and the capacity number that CMPC ultimately confirms.
The immediate development is narrower but still consequential: the state has cleared an important planning-stage hurdle. The next licence, rather than the preliminary approval alone, will be the clearer threshold for construction risk, procurement activity and the project’s real timetable.
Primary sources and methodology
The October 23 licensing decision, investment estimate, state capacity figure, terminal plan, employment projections and permitting sequence come from FEPAM’s official announcement and the Rio Grande do Sul government release.
CMPC’s 2.5-million-tonne Natureza estimate comes from the company’s product-stewardship disclosure. Its description of existing Guaíba capacity comes from a separate CMPC corporate release. Calculations in this article are Agrilinkage estimates based on those public figures and are rounded.
Related reading: CMPC Agrees US$365.5 Million Sale of 60,000 Hectares to J.P. Morgan.
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