NORTH AMERICA

Double whammy for Brazils Vitoria

17 years ago

There has been a double dose of good news delivered for the Brazilian port of Vitoria as, firstly, the Espirito Santo state government has promised to invest Reais242m ($125.4m) in the port and then Ports Minister Pedro Brito promised that the Reais117m dredging programme would be the next in Brazil to go up for public tender.

Paulo Hartung, the governor for ES, announced that his government would back, to the tune of Reais242m, new port facilities in Vitoria, including a new deepwater container terminal with a capacity of 500,000 teu per annum.

And then Pedro Brito outlined the dredging requirements that would see all berths in Vitoria dredged down to 14 m from today’s paltry 6.5m to 10 m range, which has restricted possible calls from international deepsea carriers because of the lack of sufficient draught.

Mr Brito and the Vitoria port authority also stated that the channel would be widened – from 70 m to 120 m for the entire length – to allow bigger vessels to berth. The Ports Ministry forecasts that about 100,000 cu m of sediment will need to be removed from the Channel in Vitoria and that works will take about four months.