| Type | joint stock company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1979 |
| Headquarters | Santiago, Chile |
| Key people | Anacleto Angelini † |
| Products | woodpulp engineered wood products wood |
| Employees | 34000 |
| Parent | Copec |
| Website | www.arauco.cl |
Celulosa Arauco y Constitución (also called CELCO or ARAUCO) is a Chilean wood pulp, engineered wood and forestry company controlled by Anacleto Angelini's economic group; Empresas Copec. As of 2006, CELCO/ARAUCO has five pulp mills in Chile and one in Argentina. Apart from pulp mills CELCO/ARAUCO has 4 engineered wood manufacturing plants in Chile, 2 in Argentina and 2 in Brazil.
The company was founded in September 1979 as result of the fusion of Celulosa Arauco S.A. (1967) and Celulosa Constitución S.A. (1969), both companies had been privatized from CORFO in 1977 and 1979 respectively.
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In May 2009 Arauco and the Finnish company Stora Enso announced a € 253 million deal that would make their joint venture the largest landowner in Uruguay.[1]
In September 2009, Arauco purchased the Brazilian panel company Tafisa Brasil for a deal worth US$227m.[2]
In 2004 and 2005 thousands of Black-necked Swans in the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary in Chile died or migrated away for no clear reason- The Valdivia pulp mill, located upriver, was blamed. The mill is located near the city of Mariquina and Cruces River which feeds the wetlands. The company had been dumping more dioxins and heavy metals than had been approved by the regulating agencies into the river from a wastetube that had been approved by the authorities. No causality was proven between the pollution and the plant's pollution. The scandal prompted Celco's chief executive to resign in June 2005 and the company to pledge to adopt cleaner technologies. Since no direct relation had been proved, the plant reopened two months later at limited production capacity. In July 2007 CELCO agreed to pay $614 millions Chilean Pesos to Valdivian tourism companies to avoid legal actions for supposed loses of the tourism sector of Valdivia due to contamination of Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary. In a document signed the tourism companies CELCO was exempted from all responsibility involving the contamination of Cruces River. CELCO also promised to pay $2 million monthly each of the coming 3 years to promote tourism.[3]
In December 1999 the pulpmill Licancel (located in the coast of Curicó, Maule Region) is accused of causing the death of dozens of fishes due to the dumping of wastewater into Mataquito River.[4] In June 2007 Licancel once again cause the death fishes in the river. The sanitary authorities ordered a temporary closure of the plant for 30 days and CELCO fired 3 executives. Two weeks later 200,000 liters of industrial wastewater escaped from a broken pipeline, of which 50,000 reached the river. CELCO suppose it's an accidental roture a choose to paralize the plant.[5]
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