Metso is expanding its mining-service infrastructure across South America after investing approximately €45 million over two years in repair, maintenance, technical-support, and customer-service capacity across the region.
The latest project is a new service centre in Minas Gerais, Brazil, expected to begin operations during the first quarter of 2028. Located near Belo Horizonte and close to major mining operations, the facility is intended to add capacity as Metso’s existing Brazilian service hub at Sorocaba operates at full utilisation.
The company says the investment will effectively duplicate its service capacity for important comminution work in Brazil. The new centre is being designed to handle large mining assets, including HRC grinding equipment, with overhead-crane capacity required to move heavy components safely through inspection, repair, rebuild, and maintenance operations.
For mine operators, service-centre location can have a direct effect on equipment availability. Crushers, grinding systems, pumps, screens, and other process equipment can involve large assemblies whose transport requires specialist handling, permits, heavy haulage, and long journeys. Reducing the distance between a mine and a capable repair centre can shorten part of the outage before engineering work even begins.
The Minas Gerais project forms part of a wider regional programme rather than an isolated Brazilian expansion. Metso has already increased capabilities in Antofagasta, Chile, and Parauapebas, Brazil, and developed a new service facility in Arequipa, Peru. It also opened an office in San Juan, Argentina, during the second quarter of 2026 and plans additional service and specialist technical-support infrastructure there.
South America is particularly important because of the scale of Metso’s installed equipment base. The company estimates that around 20,000 Metso units are operating across the region, creating a large population of assets requiring spares, inspection, scheduled maintenance, refurbishment, process optimisation, emergency repair, and eventual replacement.
That installed base changes the economics of service capacity. New equipment orders are tied to mine developments and major capital programmes, whereas wear and maintenance continue throughout the life of an operating plant. A large installed population can therefore support workshop investment even when greenfield mining expenditure fluctuates.
Metso’s regional capability extends beyond field technicians. Its South American footprint includes production of rubber and Poly-Met wear parts, foundry operations, pump assembly, screening and crushing equipment manufacturing, testing, laboratories, research and development, and a dedicated performance centre alongside the service network.
Repair work increasingly connects with engineering rather than simple like-for-like replacement. A worn component can be inspected, rebuilt, upgraded, relined, coated, or redesigned if operating evidence shows that another material, geometry, or maintenance interval would improve service life or process performance.
That makes workshops a source of operating information as well as repair capacity. Repeated inspection of failed or worn equipment generates evidence about loading, lubrication, alignment, slurry conditions, wear mechanisms, material performance, and maintenance practice. That information can influence future component specifications and operating procedures.
The environmental case for repair is also practical rather than abstract. Large mining components contain substantial quantities of processed metal and can be expensive to manufacture and transport. Rebuilding suitable assemblies can keep material in service for longer while reducing the need to manufacture and move a complete replacement.
Metso says approximately 3,000 employees support customers across South America. That workforce operates across geographically dispersed mining regions, making local stocks, workshop capacity, field teams, technical expertise, and logistics critical when an unplanned failure threatens production.
Eduardo Nilo, president of Metso’s South America market area, said the expanded service network was equipped to handle newer technologies, including repair of HRC grinding equipment, and that the Minas Gerais investment would duplicate capacity. The wording is significant because Sorocaba is already full: this is additional workshop capacity being developed against an existing constraint rather than speculative space built without workload.
Mining investment linked to copper and other critical minerals strengthens the demand backdrop, but higher mine output depends as much on the reliability of installed processing equipment as on new project construction. Lost production from a failed crusher, mill, or pump can rapidly exceed the cost of repair, increasing the value of faster access to qualified technical support.
The Minas Gerais centre will not begin operating until 2028, leaving construction, equipment installation, recruitment, and commissioning ahead. The broader €45 million programme is already expanding the regional network through facilities in Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Argentina.
With around 20,000 units in operation across South America, the commercial logic is mechanical: mining equipment wears and eventually requires intervention. Metso’s investment is intended to ensure that more of those repairs can be completed close enough to the customer that workshop capacity becomes part of mine availability rather than another bottleneck in the maintenance chain.
