Major new container port set to open in Southern Brazil

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.