Arco Norte surpasses Port of Santos grain exports for the first time

The ports of Arco Norte exported 52.3 million tons of soy and corn, surpassing the Port of Santos for the first time, which had 46.8 million tons shipped in 2022. The Brazilian port complexes that are above the so-called 16th parallel ( imaginary line that divides Brazil into two parts) increased their participation in the national total, which was 16.6% in 2009, to 37.1% last year. However, the jump does not mean loss of load for Santos. The data are from the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil (CNA).

The Belém/Barcarena System, in Pará, and the São Luís/Itaqui/Ponta da Madeira, in Maranhão, the two largest port complexes in Arco Norte, exported 17.4 million tons (+12.3%) and 18 million tons (+12.8%), respectively, pushing the growth curve last year. “The sum of the two amounts to more than 35 million tons, 10 million tons more compared to 2021, when these two complexes added up to 25 million tons”, pointed out the technical advisor of the National Commission for Logistics and Infrastructure of the CNA, Elisangela Pereira Lopes, who signed the comparative study started in 2009. “There was an extraordinary performance, however, in a growth trend taking into account the fall in last year’s crop”.

However, Elisangela pointed out that better use of shipments through Arco Norte does not mean loss of cargo for the Port of Santos. “What is happening is a geographic redistribution of the load. Instead of traveling 1,500 kilometers or 2,000 kilometers by truck, the cargo is destined for the nearest port. You don’t have to deal with such long distances that increase the cost of transport. And Santos has a facilitator who is a railroad at his door. The railroad is a mode of transport with a lower freight rate than road transport,” she noted.

According to the CNA technical advisor, a factor that contributed to the increase in grain exports through Arco Norte is the significant increase in agricultural production in the region, which increased from 56 million tons in 2009 to 169.9 million tons in 2022. “In 2009, the production of the new frontier areas, which involve Mato Grosso, Matopiba (Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia) and Pará, was 52%, and the consolidated ones, predominantly South and Southeast, 48%. Today, above the 16th parallel or new frontiers, production already represents 71% and below, in the South and Southeast, it has dropped to 29%. As a result, exports went to destinations other than the ports of Santos and Paranaguá. More exports began through the ports of Arco Norte”, explained Elisangela.

Another factor was the investments in port access infrastructure, such as the completion of the BR-163 works, connecting the center of Mato Grosso to the Port of Miritituba (PA) and the North-South Railroad, which facilitated return freight in the outflow. of fertilizers. “But the milestone was Law 12,815, of 2013, which allowed the private sector to request authorization from Antaq (National Waterway Transport Agency) to build its own port terminals and cargo transhipment stations, transferring the products from the truck to a barges, such as Miritituba and Tegram (in Porto do Itaqui, Maranhão)”, he mentioned. Elisangela also mentioned improvements on the BR-364 highway, which extends to Porto Velho (RO), on BR-163, to Miritituba (PA), on BR-158 and BR-153.

However, the CNA technical advisor clarifies that, although 71.2% of soy and corn production is concentrated in the regions of new frontiers, exports still predominate in the ports of the South and Southeast. “Mostly, Santos exports 63% and Paranaguá, 15%, because Arco Norte still needs more terminals”, she said.

Scenario

According to the Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics (Imea), “in the 2021/22 harvest, Mato Grosso produced approximately 84.72 million tons of soybeans and corn and, of this total, exported 49.1 million tons in 2022 , according to the Foreign Trade Secretariat (Secex) of the Ministry of Economy.

Arco Sul handled 50.06% of this total, while Arco Norte had a 49.94% share, with emphasis on the ports of Barcarena (PA), Santarém (PA), São Luís (MA) and Manaus (PA). The Port of Santos was responsible for 45.71% of grain exports from the state of São Paulo, totaling 22.44 million tons, reaching record values.

The analysis of the historical series of exports between 2016 and 2022 points out that the annual growth rate of the ports of Arco Sul was 3.17% while that of the ports of Arco Norte was 17.84%, indicating a more accentuated growth throughout of time”.

Analyzes

The port consultant and partner-director of Agência Porto Consultoria, Ivam Jardim, stated that “once the optimization of productivity has evolved, the growth of production must increasingly take place through the search for new areas, and, in this way, the North of Mato Grosso and south of Pará appear with greater availability for this expansion. In these places, the most favorable logistics for export is really Arco Norte”.

Regarding the competitiveness of the Port of Santos, Jardim made an important consideration. “With the rail expansion from Malha Norte to Lucas do Rio Verde-MT (Ferronorte project), the Port of Santos will gain competitiveness in the region. But, if Ferrogrão, which will connect Sinop (MT) to Itaituba (PA) occurs before, the tendency is that a large part of this volume will be exported through Arco Norte due to the lower logistical cost. The two projects, from this point of view, are competitors and only one of them should be viable in the short and medium term. In a future scenario for logistics and the development of Brazil, the ideal would be the implementation of both, in addition to the connection with the Ferrovia de Integração Centro-Oeste (Fico) so that the exporter can choose between several consolidated export routes, having the option of choosing the best availability of capacity and the lowest logistics cost”.

When contacted, the director-president of the Association of Private Port Terminals (ATP), Murillo Barbosa, said that the Port of Santos “is not losing cargo of export grains to the ports of Arco Norte, as shown by the data collected by the ATP from of Antaq information”.

Barbosa stresses that “according to Antaq, in 2022, the export of cereals and seeds through the Port of Santos was 41.7 million tons, a growth of 28.78% compared to the previous year. The movement for exports through Arco Norte was 50.1 million tons last year, which represents an increase of 31.9% compared to 2021. This is because, in recent years, there has been an increase in Brazilian production of grains and , consequently, of exports, also carried out by Arco Norte”.

Source: A Tribuna

To read the original report, visit: https://www.atribuna.com.br/noticias/portomar/portos-do-arco-norte-superam-pela-primeira-vez-o-porto-de-santos-em-exportacao-de-graos

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