Uruguay to dredge Port of Montevideo to 14 meters

The Government of Uruguay has announced that it intends to start dredging the Port of Montevideo to 14 meters to increase the depth and permit the arrival of ships with larger drafts.

Juan Curbelo, President of ANP (the National Port Administration of Uruguay) met with the country’s President Luis Lacalle Pou, and Chancellor Francisco Bustillo, to study the situation of the main navigation channels.

Curbelo explained to the press that the government decided that before the end of the year it will start the procedures to increase the depth of the capital’s port to 14 meters. “It is a resolution that the government has already taken” and that will be formally announced in the coming weeks, he said.

The ANP president explained that all possibilities are open to take on the works, not only in the port of Montevideo, but also in the dredging of other port terminals that will involve an investment of around 100 million dollars.

“We believe that the works should start at the beginning of next year so that in 2023 the port has a defined draft,” said Curbelo.

Regarding how this would be done, he said that all ideas are being studied and it may perfectly well be achieved through bidding, private initiative or ANP dredgers. Although in this last possibility, he recalled that other ports in the country must also be dredged.

See the graph below for the monthly history of container handling at the Port of Montevideo since January 2017:

Container Handling at the Port of Montevideo | Jan 2017 to Aug 2020 | TEU

Source: DataLiner (To request a Dataliner demo click here)

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