OREANDA-NEWS. The second duplicated stretch on the Carajas Railway (EFC), which links our mines in Para to the Ponta da Madeira Terminal in Maranhao, is already in operation. The construction was completed in January. With this stage concluded, the operation now has a large yard bypass approximately 23-km long, allowing up to six ore trains to stop at this location at a time.

New Track Construction high-tech equipment was used during the construction work. This equipment offers greater safety, as all of its operations are completely mechanized, and it allows for the construction up to 1,500 metres of railway line per day.

Understand the EFC expansion

The Carajas Railway Expansion project incorporates the North Logistics Capacity-Building (CLN) program, which aims to expand the transport capacity of the North System to cope with the new, higher volume of ore that will be produced in Para as of 2015. In addition to the EFC expansion, the program involves the construction of a branch line (which will link the Carajas S11D Iron Project mine to the Carajas Railway), the expansion of the Railway Terminal, the Ponta da Madeira Port Terminal and the construction of Pier IV. With these changes, the capacity of the North System will increase from its current capacity of 130 million metric tons per year to 230 million metric tons per year.