Marimex and Infrastructure Ministry in court over Santos port area

Port operator Marimex and the Infrastructure Ministry are having a court battle over the fate of 100,000 square meter area currently occupied by Marimex, which provides terminal customs services for containers at the port of Santos.  Since the end of April, Marimex has filed two lawsuits to ask for its lease, expiring now in May, be extended. The company has been trying since 2016 to extend its 20-year concession at the site.  The Ministry has denied the request and wants to install an area for maneuvering trains, operated by Rumo, on the site instead.

In the lawsuits, Marimex states that its request, which took almost four years to be considered, was looked upon favorably by the port authority and regulatory bodies such as Antaq (Agência Nacional de Transportes Aquaviários) until the management in charge of the port at the time, changed its opinion in May 2019.  The Santos Port Authority, at the time led by Casemiro Tércio Carvalho, argued that the investment plan for the extension would have to be in accordance with port planning, which would be modified by the PDZ (Development and Zoning Plan) of the port under development by the organ.

The new plan, which has not yet come into force, foresees an increase in the participation of railway in transportation, in addition to the spatial reorganization of terminals, with groupings by type of cargo.  For this, the SPA wants to install a railway maneuvering area for trains in the place now occupied by Marimex.

Marimex’s request was officially denied by the National Secretariat of Ports and Waterway Transport on the night of April 28, based on a technical note from the Infrastructure Ministry of April 1 and given by the AGU (Advocacia-Geral da União) on April 20th. Both documents cite the guidelines of the new PDZ and the Porto Master Plan, approved in April 2019, as reasons to deny the company’s request.   Marimex says that its investment plan had previously been approved by the Port Secretariat itself and that it complies with the PDZ that is currently in effect at the port.

In an interview with Folha de S. Paulo, infrastructure minister, Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas, stated that “Marimex has no right to a contract extension”, and that the PDZ held the necessary consultations and hearings to make a decision. “Let’s assume that I was not going to change the port logic, I could just reauction the area, as will be done with the liquid terminals currently operated by Transpetro”.

“We formulated public policy thinking about how the port will work in the future. What we will do in the port of Santos is closely linked to the North-South railroad bidding and the extension of the Malha Paulista concession. I have cargo that will arrive via Ferronorte, cargo arriving via the Malha Paulista, and via the North-South rail link. There can be no bottlenecks. I have to optimize the operation,” he said.

The minister affirms that there is already idle capacity in the current operation of containers at the port and that in the future there will be new tenders for areas destined for this type of cargo. “We are already preparing a new bid for a container area in the Saboó area”.  He also said that R$920 million would be invested by terminals that are yet to be tendered and will benefit from the railway maneuvering yard in the place where Marimex currently operates.

Freitas said, “everywhere in the world has railroad-port integration. In Santos, there will be a maneuvering area with railroad bundles in which it will be possible to have a practically automatic operation. The train will enter the port, board the ship quickly, automatically, which increases efficiency.”

The Marimex contract, according to the minister, should be replaced by a transitional one until the works are started, which are scheduled for 2021. This, says Freitas, guarantees the permanence of jobs in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. “The project will result in heavy investments and many jobs will likely be generated.”

Source: Folha de S. Paulo

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