ALL RR and Standard invest in terminal

The railway-based logistics operator América Latina Logística (ALL RR) and Standard, a company specialized in logistics of refrigerated cargo, inaugurated the latest container terminal in the state of Paraná, in Cambé. US$ 5 million were invested in the construction of an intermodal railway terminal, acquisition of equipment for container handling, adaptation of cars and also for installation of a power network.

With a total area of 35,000 square meters, the terminal has an initial capacity of 600 containers/month, but is able to handle up to 1,200 containers monthly of dry and refrigerated cargo, informed ALL´s press spokesman.

The terminal is located between the highway that connects Cambé to Rolândia and the rail grid. The shipments will mainly originate in of Northern Paraná, Southwest São Paulo and the entire state of Mato Grosso do Sul, and will arrive to the terminal by highway. There, the containers will be loaded on flatbed cars and will leave by rail  heading to the Paranaguá Container Terminal (TCP), from where they will proceed for export. The inverse operation is also foreseen, with the reception of imported loads destined to the North of the state.

The objective of this terminal is to establish an export corridor for containers, offering an alternative to exporters, with gains in scale and cost. This is only possible thanks to the complete logistics involving the collection by road, loading on railway, storage, rail transport until the TCP (Container Terminal of Paranaguá) and availability of an advanced stock of empty containers in the North of the State, stated ALL´s Director of Industrialized Products, Alexandre Campos.

Agricultural export by rail may increase

Agricultural exports in Paraná should establish a new record this year. The reassessment of the summer and winter harvest carried out by the Rural Economy Department of the Secretariat of Agriculture and Supplies, points to a 30% increased production in relation to last year, and should reach 30.31 million tons of grains. Last year, the total production was 23.5 tons of grains.

Today, only 30% of the grain exports are transported by rail, with 70% by truck. In the analysis by Nilson Hanke, of the department of logistics of the Federation Agriculture of the State of Paraná (Faep), the cost of rail transport is cheaper in relation to road transport. Unfortunately our rail grid did not reach its ideal format, we need to make more investments in infrastructure and our focus is to invert that proportion, increasing the rail to 70% of the volume, he said.

In spite of the theoretically cheaper cost, it is necessary, however, to take some basic cares, as the meeting of delivery schedules of the goods. The lack of a better structure often forces the locomotives to travel sections at low speed, Hanke said.

Industries also look at trains

Besides grain producers, some manufacturers are investing in railways to transport their exports. One of them is Unifrango that announced investments of US$ 20 million in the construction of a rail terminal in Apucarana, in the north of the state of Paraná.

According to the company´s CEO, Domingos Martins, the rail terminal for shipping the state´s poultry production will lead to a reduction of transportation costs of some 25%. Today, only 5% of Paraná´s poultry production is shipped by rail. Through this terminal, we intend that 70% of the whole production be transported by railway, he noted.

Martins assesses that this new logistics system will inaugurate a new transport strategy for the cargo of the sector. These shipments will have the international market as final destination, as well as the Brazil´s North and Northeast Region, via the Port of Paranaguá.

ALL RR considers that in the industrial market, rail transport carried out by the company had a growth in excess of 21% in inter-moda

Fonte: NetMarinha