Porto Itapoá: Where the big ships meet

Port Terminal celebrates 9 years of operations on June 16 and concepts such as efficiency, productivity and capacity to receive large ships have always been attributes of reference to the company’s brand. Since its conception, Porto Itapoá has been designed to be a port terminal capable of receiving large vessels operating in Brazilian waters. After 9 years from the beginning of its operations and, occupying the third position among the largest container movers in Brazil (ANTAQ, 2019), Porto Itapoá has always maintained its operational characteristics dedicated to the operation of large ships. In June 2011, when Porto Itapoá started operations, the largest ships arriving in Brazil were the Super-Post-Panamx, with approximately 300 meters in length. Since then, these vessels have contemplated Itapoá within their priority scales and, year after year, the dimensions of the ships allowed to operate in the country have been increasing, reaching, in 2019, the vessels that exceed 330 meters in length and, due to suitability and features provided by Babitonga Bay, added to the company’s infrastructure, Porto Itapoá continued to be one of the ports present in the programming of the main shipowners and their big vessels. Confirming this mark achieved by the Terminal and, on the horizon, the trend for vessels up to 350 meters to enter into operation in the country, the Brazilian Navy has just ratified the authorization for maneuvering ships of these dimensions for operation in Porto Itapoá. Ships with dimensions over 330 meters have been a reality at Porto Itapoá since 2017. An important factor for the success of the Terminal in these few years of operation is certainly related to its strategic location in Babitonga Bay, considered one of the major port assets in the country and one of the estuaries that least demands public investments to maintain its navigable conditions. As a reference, it is worth mentioning that the last deepening dredging in the bay was carried out in 2010 and, after ten years, maintenance dredging of the access channel was carried out. In comparison with other sea accesses to Brazilian ports, public investments are made annually and, in some cases, the use of the dredging vessel needs to act daily to maintain the parameters. Babitonga Bay has a natural depth that, in some areas of the channel, exceeds 21 meters. Currently, a project to adapt the access channel is underway, which foresees the deepening from 14 to 16 meters and the attenuation of the degree of the referred curve, allowing access to the Bay in a more agile and safe way. Babitonga Bay Port Complex represents almost 60% of the gross cargo handled in Santa Catarina. An important data for the representativeness of the Babitonga Bay Port Complex, revealed by ANTAQ’s annual publication in February this year, dealing with shipments and landings made in 2019, was the volume handled by the ports in tonnage, including here all the cargo that passes port terminals, such as grains, fuels, ore, iron, fertilizers, vehicles, containers and general cargo. In Santa Catarina, the Babitonga Bay Port Complex, which includes the Itapoá and São Francisco do Sul port terminals, represents 59.3% of all cargo handled by ports in the state. Altogether Santa Catarina handled almost 47 million tons. Of this amount, Babitonga’s ports handled almost 28 million tons. Regarding containerized cargo, exclusively, the same publication brings Porto Itapoá in the first position among the container handling ports of the State of Santa Catarina in 2019. In Brazil, the Terminal occupied the third position in the last year. According to ANTAQ data, the increase in Itapoá was the largest among the six largest Brazilian ports, of 15.92% with 735 thousand TEUs handled in 2019.