Sapphire Moonlight

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

It was a huge company and it looked like a town, with several blocks that consisted of industrial buildings with irregular shapes in an amalgam of concrete, brickwork and metal bars, imposing and often high, and large sheds, towers and tanks and reservoirs, boilers, cooling towers, equipment of different sorts. Overhead insulated steam pipes covered in aluminium sheets, air pipes painted blue, water pipes painted green, insulated cool water pipes also covered in aluminium sheets, chemical compound pipes, criss-crossed the plant. Pumps, engines, compressors, valves of all sizes could be seen everywhere. There were cranes. There were yards and bays. In some parts wooden huts could be seen. Many of the streets were paved but some were not. Plenty of unnoccupied land and rough terrain lay available for future expansions.  

Joao Caio had arrived at the big paper and cellulose plant at a quarter to twelve since lunch had been scheduled for twelve noon. The company was situated about eighty kilometres from Sao Joao D'Acre on the road to the town of Valenciano Marques. It had four gates at different points of its very wide front. Joao Caio got inside the company through the second gate. Accompanied by the owner, he had had lunch in the company's restaurant, after having been introduced to the main staff - directors, managers and chief engineers.  

They were now on a visit around the factory. They went past several different departments in a number of offices that belonged to the administrative side and the engineering side, then they moved on to the maintenance sector and to the several different maintenance shops.  

One of the maintenance sheds, a very large building, was fitted with a travelling crane, machine tools such as lathes, universal grinding machines, planing, drilling and milling machines, welding equipment, fork-lift trucks. It was like a factory in itself. 

There was also the production side in two sectors, one for cellulose, the other for paper. In this part were the huge paper making machines. The buildings that housed these machines had the appearance of ships.  

Chemical laboratories were inside the firm, in different parts.  

The company worked round-the-clock. It never stopped.  

A number of instruments controlled everything, from flow to temperature, from weight to density, from pressure to concentration, and level, and so on, and valves and electronic equipment and computerized systems could be detected everywhere.  

An engineer in a section told Joao Caio that whenever a problem arose he had to stay on until that problem had been solved, which caused him sometimes to work through the night. A meal would be ordered in the canteen when in the middle of the repair work there came a lull. At night the company would be working, smoke pouring out of the chimneys, white smoke and dark smoke, the different sectors all lit, people working. Mixed to the natural noise of the plant, the noise of the steam release valves, compressors and engines and pumps running there would be the silence of the night. There wouldn't be the customary traffic of people walking to and fro, of vehicles running, nor traffic of forklift trucks. It was just night like everywhere else as concerning traffic. The next day he wouldn't have to come or was allowed to arrive later.  

At the weekend, engineers were on stand-by in rotation according to a monthly schedule. Apart from that they were all of them likely to be called during the night to come and solve some emergency problem. The plant could never stop operating. Production was a great responsibility. Besides supplying the home market the firm was a big exporting company. Haulting production meant losses. It stopped annualy though, for preventive maintenance, for four days. External maintenance companies came to help the internal maintenance team.  

It was a fascinating job.  

During the rest of the year the chief of a sector would call the maintenance team in case of breakdowns. First a mechanic or two would come according to the gravity of the matter. If necessary a team would be formed and sent. Sometimes it would stop for hours when it was something serious, to do with some reactor, boiler, burner, compressor, electrical or electronic part, some complex valve. Then the other sectors of the factory that were dependent on that sector's production and were thereby affected by the hault would have to stop too. They would then put pressure on that sector that had stopped. Other departments once or twice removed down the production line would also put pressure. Bosses of diferent sections would phone. The boss of the engineer responsible for the section and even his manager would come personally. There would be on many such occasions a party of bosses all united there. Questions would be asked as to how the problem had occurred and why nothing had been done about it previously to prevent it from happening. Most of the time it was to a great extent a case of finding the one who had been guilty of the occurrence, the one to blame.  

There was competition, envy, hatred, meaness, showing off, snagging, but there was also camaradery and friendship. All in all it was pretty exciting. Running a section would never be boring.  

Sometimes accidents ocurred with people burnt by some acid or chemical compound or intoxicated by some gas, or some other accident with machines or when there was a fall, though these last were very rare indeed. So it could be a dangerous job. You had to wear a hard hat all the time.  

The company paid very well. There were always courses and people were constantly keeping up to date and being trained and some were sent abroad.  

'I wouldn't be able to work inside an office,' the engineer told Joao Caio. 'I just love working in the field.' 

The company owner showed Joao Caio the whole plant.  

Joao Caio had a crash course in only one class, very profitable, with precious information on how pulp and cellulose were processed and paper made.  

Joao Caio decided Diocleciano & Campos Norte would invest on this company. Diocleciano & Campos Norte was how Joao Caio's firm was called. Later he would talk to his partner, Roberto Campos Norte. Joao Caio was the major partner.  

At the end of the day the visit ended and Joao Caio thanked the owner for the visit. The day after tomorrow he would be visiting another paper and cellulose company in the northeast of the country. He told the owner so. 

'Whenever you wish to see an investment company operating,' Joao Caio said to the owner. 

'Oh, thank you very much. I'll search for you.' He made a pause. Then as if he was talking about the most important thing in the world: 

'If you have any doubt about our process. We'll be only too glad to help you.'