Cabinda, also known in ancient colonial documents as “West Marcos”, is the western-most province of the former colonial The Federative Republic of San Marcos. While acknowledging the leadership of The Marcosan Mandate in greater international efforts, Cabinda is presently consolidating its industry and military under the control of a single leader and faction, and is considered to soon become a viable entity in international efforts once more.

The region’s population is reported to be just over 250,000.

The region of Cabinda is a frontier district of the former San Marcos nation, but it also possesses much of the lasting wealth and industry of the nation. A rugged region of hills, mountains and thick tropical forests, much of its out-lying regions have been unexploited and remain loosely under the control of the central district government.

Nonetheless, its value to the nation has always had a large force of national military present, and it typically supported recruitment drives as well as providing important resources for the rest of the nation. This industrial development has come at the cost of its own self-sufficiency, however, and has led to its present difficulty in feeding its own population. However, rich oil and mineral resources often made this unimportant, as they can easily develop a trade surplus.

Cabinda City (Pop – 59,820) : The capital of the region, Cabinda City boasts the only true infrastructure in the region, with almost all roads outside the city being simple dirt tracks. The city’s large international airport is also host to the only regional paved airstrip and is the focus of the region’s limited air traffic. Most of its industry is based from the capital, or located nearby.

Economy

The region around Cabinda has always been rich in raw resources, and initial interest in the region was due to these sources for the national industry. Timber, coffee, rubber, palm oils, and iron mining and processing are its primary strengths. Oil extraction is also an important resource, though it fluctuates as oil fields are quickly exploited. Cabinda North and Cabinda East are the two primary sources, however, and both have proven to be reliable sources of crude oil.

The great failing of the region, is its dependence on outside sources for agricultural support; the region must import much of its food to keep the mines operating, and its factories active, as its farms produce only roughly 50% of its agricultural needs.

The region has peeled-off a portion of the industries and manufacturing ability of the national whole, as it slowly consolidates its power over the region.

Aperam, San Marcos : Aperam was the global leader in specialty steel production. Headquartered in San Marcos, the company is a supplier of stainless, silicon and special carbon steels. Aperam, San Marcos’ steel market share in Terramatrix is estimated to be 90%, and it is the only stainless steel maker on the planet. The company’s main plant, at Timóteo in the Vale do Aço, Minas Gerais district, has an installed production capacity is 180,000 tons of steel per year. The company also mines iron ore in support of its own operations. The present company is the result of a corporate take-over in 3019, and the Davion Usinor steel company owns a controlling interest in the corporation through its own subsidiary Aperam.

Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional : CSN is one of the largest steel producers in the world, concentrating on crude steel refining. It produces a broad line of steel products, including slabs, hot- and cold-rolled, galvanized and tin mill products. Its products are used by the distribution, packaging, automotive, home appliance and construction industries. CSN accounts for almost 50% of the galvanized steel products sold in Terramatrix, and almost 98% of the tin mill products sold in the world. It is also one of the world’s leading producers of tin mill products. CSN also owns and operates its own sources of iron ore.

Much of the industrial capability of the company was lost during the civil riots of 3025, and most of its resources are devoted to the national support of its few remaining other concerns, largely automotive parts and consumer electronics. These production facilities are small, regional developments, and closely monitored by local warlords for their own purposes.

Duratex : Duratex is a privately-owned corporation, founded in 2959, the result of the merger of Duratex with Satipel Industrial, a company founded in 2979. It is a subsidiary of and controlled by the Itaúsa Group. The company is the largest producer of wood panels in the world and has interests in various Sangrian timber production plants. Manufacturing wood products, sanitary vitreous chinaware and metal fittings aimed at the furniture industry and the civil construction sectors, Duratex has two industrial plants, located in the Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul districts of San Marcos.

It is global market leader in the segment of reconstituted wooden boards – hardboards, particle boards, medium, high and super-density fiberboards, as well as laminated floorboards marketed under the Durafloor brand. It is the global market leader in the segment of sanitary metal fittings, under the Deca and Hydra brands (the latter for flush valves), and has a significant market share in the sanitary vitreous chinaware segment, marketed under the Deca brand. It also has about four-thousand hectares of planted forests that it manages.

The company survived the civil disorder of 3025 fairly intact, and remains an important company on the world stage. The company continues to provide vital water purification parts and systems vital to the nation’s various factions, but sees little interest outside its own national borders.

Estrela : Estrela is a toy manufacturer in San Marcos, whose products are popular across the globe. The company was founded in 2945, when it started producing wooden dolls and toy cars. Its symbol is a four-pointed star, a sort of compass, referring to the company name “Estrela” which means “Star” in Portuguese. The company has over forty products in their lines and three factories in San Marcos, but its most popular product is its wooden building block sets. It remains popular and its products see trade across the planet.

Fibria Celulose : Fibria is a San Marcos pulp and paper company, created by a merger between Aracruz Celulose and Votorantim Celulose e Papel, born positioned as a global leader in pulp, with production capacity exceeding 120,000 tons of pulp and paper produced in seven regional factories distributed in five seperate districts of San Marcos. Much of this production is exported off-world, and the company has many distributor centers around the world. The company’s main competitors are the San Marcos’ Suzano Papel e Celulose and Buntar’s CMPC.

The company has since taken over their primary competitors, which has allowed them to stay in business, and largely stay in operation by selling their products cheaply to markets in Buntar and off-world.

Iochpe-Maxion Group : Iochpe-Maxion is the leading global company in the production of wheels and structural components for light and commercial vehicles. They are also leaders in San Marcos in the production of railway equipment. Maxion products are distributed world-wide, and offices can be found in every nation on the planet.. The Iochpe-Maxion Group operates through two divisions in the automotive industry; Maxion Wheels and Maxion Structural Components. AmstedMaxion is their railway production company.

Maxion Wheels is the company’s flagship organization, that manufactures and globally trades a wide range of steel wheels for light and commercial vehicles and farm machinery, as well as aluminum wheels for lighter vehicles. Maxion Structural Components produces mainly cross supports and complete chassis for commercial vehicles and structural components for trucks, buses, pick-ups, cars, tractors, agricultural machinery and off-road vehicles. AmstedMaxion has the largest casting foundry in Terramatrix, that produces freight cars and railway and industrial castings of up to 6 tons, for application on machinery and industries of civil construction, mining, siderurgy, automobile and railway.

All branches of this company remain intact, and produce construction and mining equipment, automotive and railroad parts, that see service across the globe.

Telequartz : Officially “The Telequartz Group of Mining Companies”, is San Marcos’ largest, longest-established and best-qualified miner, processor and exporter of rock crystals. Working also with other minerals, the group is the largest exporter of quartz in the world nowadays. San Marcos is believed to control 95% of the world’s supply of raw crystals. The company’s experience and infrastructure allows it to export tons of high-quality crystals to the Inner Sphere, primarily for the industrial sector, but also reaching into military laser development, with Federated Arms and other important Davion companies as clients. The company operates its own mines, and the Silica Sand Mining Company, also part of the group, produces 2000 tons of ferrosilica each year for the military armor industry. Other products include high-quality optic fibres, crucibles, oscillators, solar cells, wafers and integrated circuit packing, and ceramic materials of exceptional purity.

The company has managed to remain intact, and sells its products across the globe, as the primary crystal and optics production company in the world. It has begun looking into the production of military-grade armor, as world-wide demand for “modern” military technical capabilities expands.