Posted on November 30, 2017
By Rob Ward, JOC.com
Dredging at the port of Rio de Janeiro will enable it to handle ships of 10,000 to 12,000 TEU, positioning it to build on recently won services.
The port now has a draft of 13.3 meters (43.6 feet) at low tide that will go to 13.7 meters when dredging work now under way is complete around Christmas.
“Now, with this greatly improved draft, we can attract bigger vessels and a number of extra services become well within our reach,” said Luiz Carneiro, the CEO for the MultiRio container terminal. “Container movement has also fallen in Rio because of the crisis, but there are positive signs in the economy now, so things should pick up.”
Traffic at MultiRio fell 6 percent from 143,685 TEU year over year in the first three quarters to 134,613 TEU, but with October’s provisional figure of 11,830 TEU, the terminal is on track to handle 188,000 TEU for the full year, Carneiro said. Traffic at Multi-Rio
Mediterranean Shipping Co. recently began calling the terminal on its newly enhanced North Europe service, the NWC 1 operated with Hapag-Lloyd and Zim Integrated Shipping Services.
More MSC services could be on the way, as the carrier’s terminal arm Terminal Investment Limited has signed a joint venture agreement with MultiRio parent company Multiterminais that promises to “explore part of the container terminal’s facility in Rio de Janeiro.” Details of the deal are still unclear, but some sources say that about 50 percent of MultiRio’s berthing capacity will be given over to MSC vessels. MSC does not currently have any trans-Pacific service calling in the vicinity of Rio de Janeiro.
“It has been more than a strong rumor in shipping circles in São Paulo, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro that MSC was lining up something with MultiRio,” said a local consultant. “They have established themselves firmly in the south of Brazil, with 100 percent ownership of Portonave [Itajai port complex], they have 50 percent of BTP [Brasil Terminal Portuario] in Santos, and are said to be aiming to expand that investment, and it is logical that they should try and stake a claim in a facility in Rio de Janeiro, which should bounce back economically in the near future.”
MultiRio also has regular calls from the WMed service to and from the Mediterranean, and the Brazex service connecting Brazil with the Caribbean and US and Mexican ports along the Gulf of Mexico.
The ESA service of Evergreen Cosco, Yang Ming Line, and CMA CGM from Asia to the east coast of South America that now calls Sepetiba Tecon about 80 kilometers (49.7 miles) away is said to be looking for a new home, and MultiRio is regularly discussed as a leading contender. The port of Rio de Janeiro does not have any services originating in Asia.
“Now that the mainline carriers can access the port of Rio de Janeiro, they are heavily involved in discussions about coming here with more services,” Carneiro said.
The port of Rio de Janeiro has had the 13.3 meter draft for some time but was waiting for approval of the Brazilian Navy and harbor master to make it official, Carneiro said.
Prior to the deepening of the entrance channel and widening of quays, the largest vessels Rio de Janeiro could handle had beams of 42 meters and lengths of 300 meters, but the port can now handle ships with beams of 48.5 meters and lengths of 340 meters, Carneiro said. The maximum depth at high tide was previously 13 meters but will soon be 14.3 meters.
The deeper draft has sparked an intense competition between MultiRio and the port’s other container terminal, Libra Rio, to win new services. Libra Rio’s regular services are the Tango and UCLA to the United States, the Samwaf to West Africa, and the Conosur to Argentina and Chile.
Both are said to be pushing hard to win an Asian service, sources told JOC.com. Throughput at both ports has fallen far from the levels they recorded several years ago. Traffic at Multi-Rio last year came to 196,270 TEU, compared to 296,429 TEU in 2013. Traffic at Libra Rio has declined to 108,000 TEU in 2016 compared to the 235,302 TEU the terminal handled in 2012. On a year-over-year basis, traffic at Multi-Rio increased 3 percent in 2016, while traffic at Libra Rio fell 37 percent.
Source: JOC.com
