The return of coastal services to the Embraport terminal in the port of Santos gives a much-needed Yuletide boost to the ailing facility, which is already enjoying an uptick in dock and rail handling.
Log-in Logistica is now calling the terminal with its weekly service from Fortaleza to Buenos Aires on the South Atlantic Service, while Mercosul Line has also added Embraport back onto the roster for its Mercosur service sailing from Fortaleza to Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
The fate of Mercosul Line, which will likely have to find new owners as a result of Maersk Line’s purchase of Hamburg Sud, will be critical to Embraport. In an environment of low growth and overcapacity in Santos, new owners of Mercosul Line may choose to take its business to a terminal with which it has some sort of affiliation.
After struggling with overcapacity like fellow Santos terminals, Embraport is regaining market share after throughput stalled roughly a year ago. The terminal — in which Grupo Odebrecht has a stake of 66.6 percent in the terminal, with DP World holding the rest — increased its share of total Santos volume 3.4 percentage points to 18.4 percent, in the first 10 month of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015. The terminal handled 565,255 twenty-foot-equivalent units in the January-to-October period, according to Codesp, the Santos port authority.
Volume moved by railroad picked up rapidly following the launch of the rail service from MRS Logistica, in March 2015, and peaked, at 2,192 TEUs in November, 2015 before gradually tailing off and until bottoming out at 383 TEUs in April.
A spokesman for Embraport told JOC.com that the return of the two services is a relief both to the terminal and to its shipper customers.
“This year has not been a good one for us,” said an Embraport spokesperson. “However, things are most certainly picking up now with the cabotage services re-installed and our shippers are responding with their cargoes. A lot of cargo owners like to use the cabotage services.”
One shipper, LG Electronics, is particularly pleased, as it moves around 500 TEUs per week from Manaus, with a fair percentage of that going via cabotage to Embraport and then to its MRS railroad service.
Embraport currently only has two deep-sea services: GS1 service of Hapag-Lloyd, NYK Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co., Hamburg Sud and SeaLand to the US Gulf via Colombia and Mexico, the ASAS super joint service to Asia, featuring seven lines, among them CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and Hamburg Sud.
Grupo Odebrecht has been caught up in the Car Wash corruption scandal that has rocked Brazil, and this has led to strong rumors in Santos that Odebrecht will sell off its 66 percent share of Embraport to pay off debts and other liabilities.
Total throughput at the port of Santos for the first 10 months of this year fell 5 percent to 3 million TEUs as exports rose 5.8 percent to 1.5 million TEUs on the back of a weak local currency and imports declined 4.3 percent 1.5 million TEUs.
Source: JOC (LF)
Source: JOC