Early doors

Home-grown company Portonave will open up Brazil’s newest, 750,000 teu capacity container terminal in June, almost two months ahead of schedule – a situation almost unheard of, especially in South American terms.

Carlo Bottarelli, one of the directors for Portonave, tells Port Strategy:”We are absolutely delighted that we can announce we will be opening ahead of schedule. No-one quite believes it, but it is true.”

Already, leading carriers,including Maersk Line,MSC, CMA CGM, Hamburg Süd, Hapag-Lloyd, CSAV, China Shipping and Maruba,have made inquiries about using the new facility, which will have an 11.8 metre depth to begin with, to be later dredged to 12.5 metres. And, in a novel arrangement, Portonave – in which MSC is understood to have an interest – is sharing the costs of constructing a road linking the new port at Navegantes to the BR-470 highway.

Portonave is not having to put any money up front for the 2 km road construction but will pay $2 per container for a certain period (between three and five years) after the box terminal has opened up to an agreed amount – and that will probably cover about 70% to 90% of the cost of the road. The state of Santa Catarina’s state-owned company SC Parcerias has agreed to build and initially pay the Reais12m ($5.7m) needed for the 2.5 km of highway link that is required to connect the new port of Portonave to the highway system.

Portonave’s Mr Bottarelli says: “President Lula talks about Public Private Partnerships and this is a classic example of that.Many state governments lack money for investing in infrastructure but this seems a way forward.We will charge shippers a $2 per box fee,which is not so much, and that way everybody gains.”

The total investment in Navegantes is now around the Reais430m mark ($205.5m) and it is expected that the two-berth facility will be able to handle around 300,000 teu almost from day one, when it will have two Liebherr (LH-500) mobile harbour cranes operating. After the arrival of three post-panamax ship-to-shore gantry cranes, bought from Fantuzzi for $7m apiece in October, the capacity will rise to close to 500,000 teu.

Meanwhile, it is the lack of an agreement on who pays for the link road that is holding up another box terminal project in Santa Catarina state.German carrier Hamburg Süd and its partner Gruppo Battistella are involved in the Itapoa project to build a 600,000 teu capacity terminal near the port of Sao Francisco do Sul but neither Tecon Santa Catarina (the name given to the project at Itapoa) nor the state government in Florianopolis can agree on who will pay for the link road needed to get the project off the ground.