Strained relations

Pivotal year for Chile’s Iquique

This year is set to become one of the most significant years ever in the history of the northern Chilean Port of Iquique.

In the first nine months of the year, it handled 177,559 teu, which was a 2.9% decrease over the corresponding period in 2013. “The decrease is due almost entirely to the fact that operations had to be halted in January because of an industrial dispute by dock workers and on April 1 and 2 because of two earthquakes. As a result of this, we expect to post a similar end of year throughput figure as last year,” says Alfredo Leiton, general manager of Empresa Portuaria Iquique (EPI), the company which runs the port.

The earthquakes, which respectively registered 8.2 and 7.6 on the Richter scale, knocked out berths 1 and 2, which handle just 10% of total port traffic, consisting mainly of new vehicles and bulk, both of which were absorbed by Iquique Terminal Internacional’s berths 3 and 4 without too much difficulty. However, by mid-year, overall traffic at the port had fallen by 15% because of the previous negative influences, with May seeing a 47% decline in new vehicles and a 20% reduction in containers, despite the fact that more vessels were calling.

Nevertheless, by June, things were again going in the right direction, with box traffic growing by 11.4% compared with the same month in 2013. Virtually all containers currently handled by the port are import-export in nature, with transhipped boxes accounting for a negligible proportion of the total. Significantly, the major market for the port is neighbouring Bolivia, where annual traffic has increased from 23,853 tons in 2004 to 195,134 tons last year, equivalent to growth of 720% in a decade.

At present, Iquique does have limitations in its existing infrastructure. However, a recently issued tender aims to overcome this, since a concessionaire is being sought willing to invest in Terminal 1 to bring it up to the latest panamax vessel dimensions, allowing Iquique to handle vessels of up to 12,000 teu, although these are not yet routinely deployed in South America. Another limitation, in the sense that it hinders hinterland growth, is the fact that Iquique, unlike either Arica or Antofagasta – Chile’s two other large, northern ports – is not yet rail connected, although Mr Leiton does not rule this out in the longer term.

Significantly, despite these limitations, Iquique remains Chile’s leading northern port in terms of overall traffic, according to figures released by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal). Indeed, as part of a study undertaken in 2011 with a future tender in mind, it was shown that from current traffic levels of 2.5m tons, Iquique has the potential to reach 7m tons by 2030. Even the most conservative predictions suggest that the port will be handling at least 6.5m tons by 2035, while the most optimistic point to a figure of 8.7m tons.

“As for container traffic, this could well reach 660,700 teu by 2030 and even as much as 801,900 teu by 2035. As a result, the port will follow the trend towards specialisation in container traffic given the demand that the study identifies,” says Mr Leiton, who explains that it was this that motivated EPI to issue the tender.