Major new container port set to open in Southern Brazil

15 April 2008

BRAZIL: Grupo Battistella, a Brazilian wood and forestry company, and Navegacao e Logistica, the Brazilian unit of German shipper Hamburg Sud, are investing $100 million in a new port in the southern part of the nation. The port should be open for business in 2007. The government of Santa Catarina will invest another $22 million on 28 kilometers (17.4 miles) of highways connecting to the port.

The port of Itapoa will include a terminal exclusively for container ships with berths of 15 meters (49 feet) and capacities of 9,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, which are too large to pass through the Panama Canal. Workers at the port will offload containers from a bridge linking to a 630 meter (2,067 feet) wharf capable of servicing three vessels at the same time. A suspension bridge will extend 220 meters (721 feet) out over the ocean to a patio to store containers. Besides reducing negative environmental impacts, this type of structure cuts maintenance and service costs. Already, it has eliminated the need for dredging shipping channels.

STAY CONNECTED

Receive the information you need when you need it through our world-leading magazines, newsletters and daily briefings.

Sign up