BRAZIL: TERMINAL CONCESSION
STS10 RIVALRY HOTS UP There are two schools of thought about the role of the forthcoming STS10 terminal concession in Santos, Brazil – an ECSA hub or another terminal to promote greater competition. Rob Ward examines the arguments
8 Fears of a monopoly have resulted in Maersk and MSC, partners in the BTP terminal in Santos, being excluded from bidding as a joint entity for the new STS10 container terminal concession
The “Talk of the Town” at the recent Intermodal South America trade show, held in Sao Paulo, was: Who will compete for and who will win the bid for the STS10 site? This is the prime area in Santos that will be concessioned out for a new Reais3.3billion (US$703.4million) container terminal, scheduled for the third quarter of this year? Just over a year ago it seemed that the biggest container handler in Santos today, BTP (a joint venture between APM Terminals and TIL), would win the bid and spread its operations into the neighbouring areas - which used to be operated by the Deicmar car terminal, the Citrosuco fruit terminal, Termares, and the currently operating ro-ro and general cargo terminal Ecoporto. The latter entity was of course formerly known as Tecondi, the one-time thirdlargest box terminal in Santos, with a 19 per cent market share and 500,000TEU handled in 2013 but now, in its new guise, down to just a handful of boxes and a mere 0.5 per cent of the market. However, these assumptions were blown out of the water by the concerted efforts of rival port terminals (such as Santos Brasil across the channel in Guaruja) and concerned associations such as ABTP (the Association of Brazilian Ports and Terminals) and Abtra (the Brazilian Association of Bonded Port Terminals), who do not want to see a quasi-monopoly developing in the port. Over the past year they collectively lobbied the Brazilian state monopoly watchdog, Cade, to do something to stop a further concentration of terminal ownership, arguing that a successful BTP bid could see its share of Santos throughput (totalling 43.7 per cent of 4.83 million TEU in 2021) ramp up to
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as much as 80 per cent. The other two terminals, Santos Brasil and DP World Santos, accounted for market shares of 35.6 per cent and 20 per cent respectively in 2021. There are also fears among shippers in Brazil that the “Verticalisation” process, which has seen shipping lines, namely Maersk Line and MSC, add logistics services and port terminal operations to their roster – MSC at Portonave in Santa Catarina and Multi-Rio in Rio de Janeiro, and then Maersk Line with APM Terminals Itajai, Itapoa and Pecem, plus BTP of course – is making them too powerful. Flavia Takafashi, a director at Antaq (the powerful National body for waterborne transport), told Valor newspaper recently that during recent “skipped calls/rollovers” by shipping lines, they seemed to be favouring those port terminals in which they had an equity interest against those “white flag” terminals without such connections. Cade quickly reached a decision to ban BTP from bidding for STS10 but is still allowing the stevedoring arms of its two shareholders – Terminal Investment Limited (MSC) and APM Terminals (Maersk Line) – to bid separately. Abtra is still crying “foul” and continues lobbying Cade to stop TIL and APMT bidding altogether, and also, even louder, for a two-orthree year delay in the process, which would suit Abtra members such as Ecoporto Santos and Bandeirantes/ Deicmar whose contracts are due to expire in 2023. CAPACITY AND HUB PORT ISSUES Angelino Caputo, Executive President, Abtra, tells Port Strategy that BTP, which he says has the support of the Santos Port Authority (SPA), is under-estimating the current
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