STS 10 concession obstruction?

Outgoing Santos Port Authority (SPA) president Fernando Biral has said that some of the cash from recent years’ profits made from port operations – a record Reais416 million (US$80m) for the first nine months of 2022 (see All Change at Santos) – will go to a fund to pay “outstanding debts” to some operators, including Ecoporto.

And a source very close to Ecoporto, a container and breakbulk terminal, notes that its area, of 126,000 sq m, is destined, according to SPA’s PDZ Master Plan, to be part of the 570,000 sq m that will form STS10, but if a “compensation agreement” is not reached with SPS and/or the Ports Ministry, then it will go through the courts and that could delay the process for up to five years.

In a nutshell Ecoporto, according to the reliable source, is saying the SPA must provide Reais300M (US$60M) compensation for the terminal handling equipment (including three virtually unused ZPMC STSGCs) it will hand over to the winning STS10 bidder plus another Reais1bn ($196M) for a “contract discrepancy.” Ecoporto’s operational area should have been 40,000 sq m larger when it began its concession some 20-years ago. While the concession has now ended, aside from a short short-term extension to July, Ecoporto still has an active claim for compensation.

The way Ecoporto sees it, SPA has two choices; either they pay up most of the Reais1.3bn compensation claim or allow it to continue to operate with a renewed concession for another 20 or 25 years, which Antaq originally gave them permission to do. If not legal proceedings will be issued and that will be very time consuming.

Indeed, a source at Ecoporto reports that preliminary legal actions have already been initiated.