Operation of private terminals to receive $10.34B

Private Use Terminals (TUPs), which are operated by major exporting and importing companies, enjoying a comfortable lead on freight handling in Brazilian port system.  Leadership must be intensified in the coming years, since, according to the National Waterway Transport Agency (Antaq), out of total investments for the business in the coming years ($14.78 billion), no less than $10.34 billion will be applied in the construction, expansion and operation of TUPs.

Private terminals are a strategic tool and a catalyst of industrial enterprises, the president of Brazilian Association of Port Terminals (ABTP), Wilen Manteli says. According to Antaq’s data, out of the 886 million tons handled in 2011, 557 million was through TUPs, equivalent to 62.9% of the total. There was an increase of 2.2% over the previous year, when 545 million tons were handled.

Iron ore and fuels accounted for 92.9% of the freight handling in TUPs and 58.4% of the overall volume of the Brazilian port system. Vale’s TUP, in Tubarão, in the State of Espírito Santo, led the freight handling in Brazil in 2011, accounting for 12.43% of total.

Among the specialized liquid bulk terminals, the largest movement occurred in the Petrobras’s TUP Almirante Barroso, which handled 5.61% of total freights. Petrobras plans to expand the berthing capacity of tankers of this terminal, located in São Sebastião (SP). The work is estimated at $123.18 million. Transpetro, a subsidiary of Petrobras for logistics, discusses the approval of environmental agencies to install the 1.7-km new structure in the north of the channel.

Vale Fertilizantes intends to become the leading provider of integrated logistics for export of dry bulk cargoes from the Port of Santos (SP), after investments of $1.72 billion in Ferrovia Centro Atlântica and in the expansion of Ultrafertil Marine Terminal (TUF) in Santos. Once the work is completed, the company, which currently uses the terminal to import fertilizer inputs, will handle sugar and soybeans, with a capacity to store 518,500 tons. The volume is equivalent to 37% of the current offer of the eight terminals that handle the two products through the Port of Santos. The project, scheduled for 2015, is currently under environmental licensing.

LLX’s Superport of Açu will be a Mixed Use Private Port Complex, with the construction of two terminals, TX 1 and TX 2. $1.28 billion has already been invested in the venture. According to LLX, 70 memoranda have been signed with those interested in operating the complex. Among them there are Wisco, China’s third largest steel mill, and Ternium; they plan to install a siderurgical park with an initial production capacity of 8.4 million tons of crude steel per year.