Expansion of the west of the Port of Paranaguá quay advances

The Port of Paranaguá has started to assemble the equipment that will operate in the new berth 201. The future West Export Corridor will link five bulk terminals and move 6m tons of grain per year – a 140% increase of its current capacity, which is 2.5m tons.

The public company Portos do Paraná is investing about R$210m in works and loading structures, such as conveyor belts and shiploaders, equipment that dump the grain into the holds of vessels.

According to the CEO of Portos do Paraná, Luiz Fernando Garcia, each new equipment will carry 2,000 tons of products per hour. “This doubles the amount operated by the old system, which was 1,000 tons/hour, at most 1,500 tons/hour.”

The goal is for the Western Corridor to help unburden the East Corridor even before the planned modernization.

Schedule – The assembly of the shiploaders will be completed within 120 days and then the equipment will be tested. “Adjustments will be made after the final assembly of the equipment, such as the rail, the placement, and connection with the control center,” says the director of Engineering and Maintenance, Rogério Barzellay.

Berth 201 is expected to start operating in the first half of 2020. “The contract is up to date and the civil works are approximately 97% completed and already have been measured by the inspection,” he informs.

Advancement – The extension of the quay will allow the Port of Paranaguá to receive larger ships that can carry up to 80,000 tons of gross cargo, without advancing to berth 202. There is also the possibility of deepening the navigation from the current 12.5 meters to 13.7 meters.

The revitalization includes structural reinforcement, pedestrian walkway installation, fender exchange, metal spacers, and the installation of new ship mooring dolphins. The delivery of the work ends with a wait of almost 30 years. The first project for the modernization of the sector dates from 1990.

Future West Corridor terminals initiated interconnections

The terminals operating in Paranaguá are preparing to operate in a new Western Export Corridor. According to the head of the Operations Division, Maurício do Carmo, the two new shiploaders will be linked to three terminals, two of them new ventures. “In the future, we will reach five interconnected terminals in this complex,” he said.

The two new terminals that will interconnect to the bulk export complex are West Terminal (Toex), which will have a warehouse with a static capacity of up to 88,000 tons, and Moinho Iguaçu, for up to 55,000 tons, with new contracts for passage.

Moinho Iguaçu already has the terminal built. “Now we are finishing the structure of the conveyor belts that will connect the terminal to point zero, where the port mats start”, explains the terminal’s director, Alcídes Cavalca Neto.

According to him, this link is 1,250 meters long. The expectation is to ship more than 1m tons per year for the new structure. “Moinho Iguaçu already moved grain through the other terminals of the Paranaguá Port East Corridor. Now, we will operate through our own terminal,” says the company’s director.

The West Terminal (Toex) should build its own warehouse in 2020. By then, according to the company, they should start the operation by Moinho Iguaçu, with whom they signed the contract. Although it does not have the storage structure ready, the company is also already building the 843 meters of tracks to the so-called point zero.

Moving – During construction, the berth in expansion continued to operate, but with some restrictions and care. One of the equipment has already been disassembled. The other former remains operative to load the ships and will be decommissioned and withdrawn as soon as the new ones are completed.

Bunge (Soceppar) currently operates connected to berth 201. The terminal can hold up to 210,000 tons of solid export bulk.

From January to October this year, about 1.07m tons of export bulk were handled by berth 201, located at the western end of the Port of Paranaguá pier. At 35 berths, the main product shipped was soybean (564,794 tons), followed by corn (221,920 tons), soybean meal (216,486 tons), and sugar (66,737 tons).

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