Port of Santos Dredging Tender: Etesco Seeks Lower-Bid Review

According to documents filed with Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts (TCU), Etesco has submitted final arguments in administrative proceedings before the court challenging the outcome of the tender to deepen the Port of Santos access channel. Among the company’s principal requests is that the Santos Port Authority (APS) review the qualification documents submitted by Consórcio Santos Dragagem, led by the Brazilian company—a procedure that, according to information the port authority itself provided to the court, was never carried out.

Deepening the access channel from its current 15 meters to 16 meters is considered strategic for container operations at the Port of Santos. The greater depth is expected to facilitate calls by larger container ships with greater cargo capacity, creating opportunities for economies of scale, improved operational efficiency, and lower logistics costs.

The chart below compares containerized exports and imports handled at the Port of Santos, according to Datamar data:

Exports & Imports | Port of Santos | Jan 2024 – Aug 2026 | TEUs

Source: DataLiner – explore our trade data

In September 2025, the consortium submitted a bid of R$610 million, approximately R$10 million below the offer from Belgian company Jan De Nul, which was declared the winner. APS disqualified the Brazilian bid over a formal issue involving its cost spreadsheet, although Etesco says the tender committee had authorized the submission of supplementary documents and received them within the established deadline.

In its final arguments to the TCU, the company maintains that the bidders received unequal treatment. According to the filing, the opportunity to provide additional information, which proved insufficient to keep the lowest-priced bid in contention, was granted twice to the winning bidder, which was also allowed to submit supplementary documents and revise amounts during the evaluation.

Etesco cites earlier TCU rulings that it says support its allegation of unequal treatment. In the opinion underpinning Ruling No. 2,316/2026, the court stated that the winning bid did not correspond to the one originally submitted at the public session but had been reconstructed during the evaluation phase with the contracting authority’s participation.

Regarding this alleged unequal treatment by APS, Etesco’s lawyers state in their final arguments: “What was denied to the lower-priced bid—the opportunity to provide additional information—was granted twice to the higher-priced bid, including a price change. This court acknowledged that in subsection 9.3.2 of the ruling under appeal. And the opinion accompanying Ruling No. 2,316/2026 was explicit: ‘The bid ultimately declared the winner is not the same bid originally submitted at the public session, but a bid reconstructed during the evaluation phase, with the active involvement of the contracting authority.’ The contracting authority, the opinion continued, ‘applied a strict standard to one bidder and a lenient standard to another when faced with defects of a similar nature’ (Case TC 011.750/2026-0, opinion, paragraphs 45 and 49).”

Another significant issue is the lack of a review of Consórcio Santos Dragagem’s qualification documents. On June 23, 2026, Etesco formally requested, in a letter to the APS president, that the contract award await a decision on its appeal and that the consortium’s technical and financial qualifications be verified following Neptune Brasil’s departure.

According to Etesco’s submissions to the TCU, the letter went unanswered and, more seriously, APS entirely disregarded its warning. In the message, the Brazilian company stated: “What is curious is the rush to sign the contract with Jan De Nul, given that the already-expired contract with Van Oord was amended in January 2026. The haste would be understandable if the purpose were to avoid that amendment, since the current tender dates back to July 2025.”

Two months later, APS informed the court that the consortium’s qualification documents had not even been submitted for its review. The Brazilian company argues that this verification is necessary for the bid to be assessed objectively, including in light of changes to the consortium’s membership.

Chinese Company’s Withdrawal From the Consortium

The withdrawal of CHEC-D, a Chinese company that held a 1% stake in the Etesco-led Consórcio Santos Dragagem, is also questioned in the submissions to the TCU. On September 11, 2026, the company notified its Brazilian partner that it would leave the consortium regardless of the tender’s outcome. Four days later, it informed APS directly of its decision.

Etesco’s lawyers argue that the withdrawal needs to be examined in light of the Chinese group’s stated commercial interests in Brazil’s dredging market. CHEC-D’s parent company is Shanghai Dredging, part of the state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) group, which has expressed interest in future concessions for port access channels in Brazil, including Santos.

The submissions also note that companies affiliated with the Chinese group have participated in other projects with Jan De Nul, including dredging the Port of Rio de Janeiro access channel. CCCC is also a shareholder in Mota-Engil, the winner of the Santos–Guarujá tunnel auction.

Etesco emphasizes that the tunnel project includes substantial dredging work. To place the tunnel sections on the channel bed, dredging will be required across the channel’s entire cross-section over approximately 12 months (CETESB, Technical Opinion No. 038/2025/IL, pp. 20 and 28; Document 14), involving an estimated 2.8 million cubic meters. CCCC is also Mota-Engil’s partner in the consortium that won the tender for the project. The group to which CHEC-D belongs is therefore involved in a project that depends on dredging in the same Santos channel, and Etesco argues that its subsidiary’s stated lack of interest is inconsistent with that situation.

Another relevant development was an official visit to China by a Ministry of Ports and Airports delegation from August 24 to 28, 2026. In Beijing, the delegation presented the sector’s project pipeline to CCCC. In Shanghai, it met with Shanghai Dredging Company, CHEC-D’s parent, which “discussed opportunities related to port access channels and waterways,” Etesco’s lawyers note in the submissions, adding that “the pipeline included concession projects for the access channels at Rio Grande, Santos and Itajaí.”

Sixteen days after the meeting in Shanghai, CHEC-D announced its withdrawal from the Brazilian consortium. Etesco argues in its submissions to the TCU that the timing of the events and the discrepancy between the Chinese group’s stated interest in the sector and its subsidiary’s withdrawal warrant an investigation. The company’s lawyers stress that the withdrawal letter invoked clauses in the consortium commitment agreement and cited a lack of interest and availability without providing a business rationale that could explain the decision.

Etesco argues that CHEC-D’s withdrawal from the consortium contradicts everything the group itself has publicly stated. Its parent company expressed interest to the official Brazilian delegation in “port access channels and waterways” and upcoming channel concessions, including Santos. As noted above, the group also competes for access-channel concessions, such as the one at the Port of Rio de Janeiro, alongside Jan De Nul, and is a shareholder in the company that won the Santos–Guarujá tunnel auction.

At the end of their submissions, referring to the Chinese company’s withdrawal and the other circumstances surrounding the tender, Etesco’s lawyers state: “In administrative proceedings, coincidences are neither assumed nor ignored: they are investigated. The appellant is not asking this court to guess a foreign group’s reasons. It is asking the court not to ignore them. And not to allow a unilateral act, unrelated to the tender itself, by a company linked to the bidder that benefited and to interests dependent on APS itself, to determine the fate of the lowest-priced bid without scrutiny.”

Tender Remains Suspended

The dispute has already prompted successive administrative and judicial challenges. The contract with Jan De Nul was signed in June 2026, but in August the TCU issued another interim order suspending the tender and keeping the project on hold.

In its final arguments, Etesco asks the court not to allow the Chinese company’s unilateral withdrawal to determine the fate of the lowest-priced bid without proper scrutiny. It argues that APS should review the consortium’s documents and verify its qualifications instead of treating CHEC-D’s departure as sufficient grounds to exclude it from the competition.

Resolving the case—in which Etesco argues that the links and potential shared interests among the Chinese company, Jan De Nul and the Ministry of Ports and Airports warrant closer examination—is important for the Port of Santos, Brazil’s leading port complex, because deepening the channel is a strategic project to expand its capacity to accommodate larger vessels. As long as the dispute over the tender’s outcome persists, work on the project remains stalled.

Source attribution: Etesco

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