Posted on July 17, 2017
By Rob Ward, JOC.com
South America’s largest port for containerized cargo had its official draft improved from 12.3 meters (40.4 feet) up to 12.6 meters Tuesday after emergency dredging concentrated on stretch one of the Santo port channel.
The move comes a week after the Capitania dos Portos de São Paulo (CPSP), which is part of the Brazilian Navy, reduced the official draft at Brazil’s main gateway port down from 13.2 meters after sedimentation at stretch one of the entrance channel caused doubts about safety. The draft restrictions led to 10,000 TEU being rolled, or missing their sailing, over the past week and operational losses of $16.1 million, according to José Roque, executive director of the Shipagents’ Association for Santos and the State of São Paulo.
“The port authority [Codesp] carried out new bathymetric tests and with this analysis, we were able to extend the draft to 12.6 meters. The gain is small, just 30 centimeters, but it is the result of the dredging already carried out over the past week, ” said Alberto José Pinheiro de Carvalho, the head of the CPSP.
Neither Codesp nor CPSP could say when the full draft would be restored, but there were hints that another 30 cm could be added by next weekend.
Although the incremental gains are providing some relief to shippers in the short-term, a permanent solution could take much longer.
Codesp for the past three years has promised to dredge the Santos harbor to at least 15.5 meters and hopefully 17 meters if environmental impact studies return favorable results. A depth of 17 meters would enable the port to handle the largest container ships on the east coast of South America trade, which are already challenging some ports.
The port has been getting by with maintenance dredging in the meantime. Dratec Engenharia, the company carrying out the dredging, had been working on stretch three of the entrance channel before it began the emergency work, which will continue until the end of July.
Despite the promises of a future solution, port user frustration with the draft issues continues to grow as carriers had to redirect thousands of boxes to alternative ports with more draft, such as Paranagua to the south or Sepetiba to the north.
“Our whole dredging system is no longer fit for purpose. It has been a plaything for the politicians who run Codesp and other port authorities and it is now time to find a different solution,” a shipping agent based in Santos told JOC.com. “Maybe privatization of this process is the best way forward. Anything is better than the uncertainty that we have faced in recent years.”
Source: JOC.com
