SÃO PAULO — Edson Monteiro will take over as temporary chief executive officer of Brazilian copper producer Paranapanema SA.

Monteiro was vice president of the company and a director of Banco do Brasil. He also was interim president of Brazilian state pension fund Previ, Paranapanema’s biggest stakeholder with 23.9 percent of the company’s shares.

Paranapanema’s stakeholders have hired a recruitment firm to find a new chief executive officer to replace Antonio de Souza Queiroz Ferraz Jr., who resigned at the end of 2012.

The company is currently going through a restructuring, due to end in 2014, aimed at increasing its production capacity to 280,000 tonnes of copper per year from 220,000 tonnes.

Monteiro said that all previous plans remain in place. "Our plans have not changed," he told AMM sister publication Metal Bulletin.

The company’s projects include modernizing its operations in Dias d’Ávila in Bahia state and building a new tube plant in Utinga in Espírito Santo state.

Paranapanema’s sales totaled 894.7 million reais ($427.2 million) in the third quarter—710.1 million reais in domestic sales and 184.6 million reais in exports—down 14.7 percent from the same period a year earlier.

A version of this article was first published by AMM sister publication Metal Bulletin.