In Brazil, the reinforced and realigned Berth 3 at the port of Itajai´ is due to start handling dry bulk traffic as of May. This will
consist almost entirely of organic soya. This should help offset last year’s loss of 40% of the port’s Asian traffic.
According to port director Antonio Ayres dos Santos Ju´nior, it was absolutely essential to implement this change to
attempt to widen the overall mix of services offered. Once the soya traffic begins, he said, it will help improve the overall
financial health of the port and reinvigorate the logistics chain.
Around 55 road haulage vehicles daily will bring organic soya to the port, which will improve the overall traffic at the port
by 8% compared with January 2016 and by 38% on the right hand bank of the port.
It is calculated that up to 60,000 tonnes of soya a month will come to the port, making use of the BR-101 highway.
In January this year, the Itajai´-Ac¸u port complex handling 874,000 tonnes of cargo, with 161,000 of those tonnes coming
through Itajai´ on the right bank. This figure is now expected to increase to 220,000 tonnes per month. When Asian shipping
lines left the port, throughput had been in the order of 300,000 tonnes.