Original news was published on 24 March, 2015
Rio de Janeiro’s leading breakbulk terminals saw the first phase of a Reais1.8 billion (US$557 million) expansion scheme inaugurated by Brazil President Dilma Rousseff at the city’s Caju quayside.
Rousseff, whose second term as president is under fire for wrongdoing at state-controlled oil and transport company Petrobras, officiated at the opening of the newly extended 1.86-kilometer quay for the MultiCar car terminal and MultiRio (both part of the Multiterminais holding group) along with the neighboring LibraRio container terminal. The new quay is believed to be the longest continuous quay in South America.
MultiRio is a project cargo and container facility, and handles around 95 percent of all project cargo in/out of Rio de Janeiro, including heavy machinery for the Comperj refinery the other side of Guanabara Bay and for projects related to last year’s soccer world cup and next year’s Rio Olympics.
The three complexes together have been christened Porto do Futuro (Port of The Future) and a new link road and tunnel will be built to move cargoes directly from the Caju area to Avenida Brasil, thereby reducing congestion in the centre of Rio de Janeiro.
Luiz Carneiro, president of MultiCar and MultiRio, said MultiRio now has 1 million TEUs of annual capacity, up from 670,000 TEUs prior to the Porto do Futuro expansion.
The pier extension added 800 meters to MultiRio and up to 260 meters for MultiCar plus an additional 15 meters using dolphins. Additional equipment includes bring ship-to-shore gantry cranes from five to nine, and adding 28 rubber-tired gantries. A new dredging contract signed by the Special Ports Ministry (SEP) will improve the minimum draft for the three terminals to 15 meters, from 13 meters currently, by the end of next year. Future plans would deepen draft to 17 meters.
The expansion will see Multi-Car eventually increase its annual capacity 36 percent to 326,000 vehicles. The vehicle terminal has already seen a number of modifications including the addition of covered parking for 7,000 vehicles.
“Over the last decade, we have seen an increase in the size of ships at an unprecedented pace, all seeking economies of scale,” Carneiro said at the ceremony for the expansion. “As the vessel sizes grew, we were gradually losing the ability to operate two ships simultaneously. If nothing was done, we would have lost about one-third of our installed capacity, along with the ability to provide an efficient and competitive service, since international best practice dictates a container terminal must have a minimum of two berths.”
*NEWS SOURCE
