Posted on September 2, 2024
A port without inland navigation:
How much of the cargo at the iconic port of Santos in Brazil is transported by inland waterways? Zero! The geography around Santos is one of the most incredible I have ever seen in a port.
The Santos Estuary, where the Port of Santos is located, is barely four kilometres long. Several rivers feed into the estuary, but they are all small, having originated just a few kilometres away.
The island of Sao Vicente, where the Port of Santos is located, has at its back the Serra do Mar, a mountain range that acts as a huge wall against the city of Sao Paulo, one of the largest in the world with almost 23 million inhabitants, which is barely 72 km from the port.
However, in addition to the Serra do Mar, there is a second mountain range that also separates the port from the interior: Serra de Mantiqueira.
This means that no river coming from the large state of São Paulo, or from other large states such as Minas Gerais, Paraná, Goiás or Matto Grosso do Soul, descends from the interior towards São Paulo to chase the Atlantic Ocean near the port of Santos.
São Paulo’s rivers flow inland until most of them join the Paraná River, which joins the Paraguay River before ending between Argentina and Uruguay to form the Río de la Plata. The largest of Sao Paulo’s rivers is the Tieté, which starts very close to the port of Santos, but then flows inland as if escaping from the port (the exception is the river of Paraíba do Sul, which is not really an inland river, as it flows parallel to the coast and ends in the Atlantic Ocean, in the state of Rio de Janeiro).
The peculiar geography of the state, where inland navigation was not suitable for transporting coffee from São Paulo to the Rio de la Plata due to the almost endless river journey to the south, made overland transport to Santos the only option for exporting coffee, especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when São Paulo was the leading coffee exporting state.
In the beginning, coffee was transported by oxcarts or mules on journeys lasting several days. Then it was by train, completed by British investors in 1867, from Sao Paulo to Santos. Later extensions connected the city of Sao Paulo to coffee-growing areas much further inland. Of course, building the train was no easy task, as it had to cross the mountain ranges. The crossing of the Serra do Mar (less than 10 km) was particularly challenging.
The train also carried passengers. The massive immigration of Europeans, mainly Italians, followed by Spaniards, Germans and other nationalities, used this train to reach the coffee plantations of Sao Paulo, coffee being the brown gold of the time.
After the train came the highways and the trucks.
I end with a verse that could have been written at the end of the XIX century:
Amidst the bustling port, the world arrives,
Where the sea’s salt scent and fervor thrives.
Roughened hands, marked by labor’s embrace,
Unloading the wealth that coffee’s trade has traced.
The Port of Santos mirrors the economy of Sao Paulo:
The Port of Santos has mirrored the economy of the State of Sao Paulo since the 19th century.
The economic history of Sao Paulo can be written by an economic historian or from the throughput statistics of the Port of Santos. In the beginning, there were the coffee plantations and the sacks of coffee loaded onto ships. As the city of Sao Paulo grew and other places in the vast state diversified, so did Santos’ exports. Textiles and clothing marked the beginning of Sao Paulo’s industrial exports. Processed foods such as refined sugar and canned meat followed. Later, industrialisation expanded the export menu: cars and car parts, chemicals, steel and metal parts, etc. Of course, the flow was also from the port to Sao Paulo, as the state’s imports grew and diversified enormously.
As the state of Sao Paulo grew bigger and stronger, so did the port of Santos. Isn’t that what a mirror does?
The Port of Santos also became a microcosm of Brazil, especially in the 20th century. From the 1930s, the port became a stronghold of the trade unions. Strikes began in the inter-war period and continued in the 1950s and 1970s. The influence of communist and socialist ideas was so strong that the port was sometimes called the ‘Red Port’. The Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores), on which Lula da Silva became president, was a political party born in Sao Paulo from intellectuals and social movements, but above all from the trade unions. During the harsh military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, the government carried out raids and arrests of trade union leaders, many of whom disappeared.
With the return of democracy and the rise of privatisation and globalisation, the privatisation of the port began. In Santos, it has been a complex, multi-step and very slow process covering decades. It began with Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992) and continued with Itamar Franco (1992-1994), but the greatest progress was made during the presidency of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002). Lula da Silva (2003-2010) did not reverse privatisation, having already adopted more moderate ideas.
The model adopted is the typical one finds in many ports: most terminals are privatised, while the overall management and regulatory oversight of the port remain under public control. However, the privatisation of terminals is not complete and some remain under public management. Privatisation has brought the two main benefits we have seen in port privatisation around the world: significant improvements in operations and massive attraction of new investment in infrastructure and technology. Both have made the port much more competitive.
The fascinating estuary of the Port of Santos:
Santos is not a river port, although small rivers flow into the Santos estuary. Unlike typical river ports, it does not suffer from problems such as siltation or river flooding because the contribution of water from these small rivers is minimal. Instead, as an estuary port, it is primarily filled with seawater, driven by the daily tides that move water in and out of the estuary like piano notes in a gentle bossa nova.
The tides have a significant impact on navigational conditions and operations at the Port of Santos, affecting water depths in channels and berths, with large vessel movements scheduled according to tidal windows. The complex waterways, including narrow channels, fluctuating tides and heavy traffic, require pilotage for safe navigation.
The estuary includes several protected areas that are vital for the conservation of local ecosystems, including mangroves, tidal flats and diverse wildlife. The islands of Piacaguera, dos Bagres and Barnabé play an important role in this ecological context.
Port activities, a dense population and industrial operations further inland contribute to air pollution in Santos. For example, this week’s Air Quality Index (AQI) graph shows 1 day of ‘good’ air quality, 3 days of ‘moderate’, 1 day of ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’ and 2 days of ‘unhealthy’, without reaching ‘very unhealthy’ or ‘hazardous’.
The hustle and bustle of a multi-purpose port:
Port facilities and infrastructure occupy a significant proportion of the first 2km of the estuary, which is approximately 4km long. As the estuary extends further inland, the concentration of port facilities gradually decreases.
Santos has a large number of terminals (over 30) and berths (over 60), making it impractical to refer to individual terminals. Instead, it’s more effective to categorise them by type: container, bulk, liquid bulk, ro-ro, breakbulk and ferry. The layout is quite chaotic, with all blended in a giant samba dance.
The urban areas of Santos are directly adjacent to the port facilities, making the port a prominent feature of the urban landscape. This urban encroachment significantly limits the development of new port facilities and infrastructure.
The Development and Zoning Plan 2020-2040 outlines future expansion areas (the dotted areas), but whether all this new space will be possible remains uncertain, as environmental groups have voiced their opposition. The plan also projects three scenarios for the estuary’s vessel capacity by 2045, ranging from positive (12,000) to negative (10,000), compared to nearly 5,000 vessels in 2019.
Finally, let’s look at the anchorage areas:
1) Warships, 2) requiring sanitary inspection, 3) docking in the next 24 hours, 4) without a docking plan, 5) carrying flammable or explosive cargoes, and 6) quarantined ships or suspected radioactive material.
Another important port of the world is coming, stay tuned!
Pablo Rodas-Martini holds a PhD and MSc from Queen Mary and Westfield College (now Queen Mary College), University of London.
