DT Exclusive Interview with LUSCHI Associate Director

Brazilian dredging company LUSCHI is a service provider company focused on sanitation and environmental segments, offering dredging solution for wastewater treatment.

DredgingToday.com is bringing you an exclusive interview with Mr. Ilson Rogerio Luschi, Associate Director of LUSCHI, who has been working on the development and implementation of projects for 8 years and is responsible for more than 25 projects in several sectors.

DT: What can you tell us about the company’s 2014 goals and expectations?

Luschi: Our goal for 2014 is to increase our production capacity considering the great demand from our clients over the years, besides being the fastest-growing dredging company in Brazil.

Currently, the Brazilian market decreases, but LUSCHI is still in a favorable situation and it is seeking a partnership to meet its demand. LUSCHI works on a specific segment of dredging (small and medium size), which has enough demand, unlike the large dredging projects that have low supply and interest only to foreign companies.

We are specialists in maritime dredging and contaminated treatment, which is a great advantage for LUSCHI in the Brazilian market, because, unfortunately, there are high levels of contamination in the bays and channels of our country.

DT: Your company recently added TSHD “LUSCHI X” to its fleet. What can you tell us about the acquisition?

Luschi: We acquired this trailing suction hopper dredger, the “LUSCHI X” (Also called: Recreio dos Bandeirantes) through the BIC bank (that belongs now to China Construction Bank), which by the way is a great vessel with good capacity. We are in the final stage of refurbishment and soon we will be operating it.

DT: Can you provide us with more details about your dredging project for ArcelorMittal? 

Luschi: It is a simple work, however it has some details during the implementation which are complicated, for example, the canal is very tight and has 1.5 to 2 meters depth, in other words, no vessel can navigate to perform dredging.

The company made adaptations to the hopper dredger LUSCHI IX, reversing the suction pipes towards to stern side (the vessel will enter with its back, in order to gain depth to access the canal). There are few machines that have this flexibility of adaptation.

We recently received the dredging license from navy and we will be starting the operation this week, with the expected completion of approximately 50 days. In Brazil, some environmental licenses and work licenses take time to be released, delaying works. Unfortunately, this is very common in the Brazilian dredging market.

DT: The group LUSCHI has recently settled a partnership with the French company CDO Innov, manufacturer of specific equipment for agriculture and sanitation?

Luschi: The partnership between LUSCHI and CDO Innov consists of manufacturing boats and agricultural tractors (in Brazil) for sale throughout Latin America, as well as service. In case of boats that are designed for dredging area, they can be used as small tugs and for removal of aquatic vegetation.

LUSCHI met CDO Innov due to problems encountered in water bodies of Latin America that have excess of vegetation and the fact does not exist in Brazil specific tool to remove vegetation, which delays the services of dredging.

The boats of the CDO Innov have a great technology that provides the removal of vegetation, with high production and low cost, enabling the dredging works.

DT: Which markets are currently in the focus of LUSCHI, and are you ready to expand your business?

Luschi: The company is divided into three segments: maritime dredging, environmental dredging (conventional dredging and treatment of contaminated materials) and waterproofing using synthetic and bituminous membranes, geomembranes, and polyurethane.

In all areas, LUSCHI seeks an increase in the Latin American market; in the maritime segment, more and more, we wish to work in small and medium dredging projects with emphasis on treatment of contaminated materials, joined by the LUSCHI Environmental and LUSCHI Maritime; also waterproofing is an ever-growing segment that has a lot of demand in the Latin American market.

DT: What are your business plans for the future?

We seek a growth in our business of at least 40% for 2015. In addition, we wish to expand our facilities to other Latin American countries, however it is too early to speak about our business strategies. But I believe in January we will establish a new basis. We also are studying to purchase a new hopper dredger.