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Hub status targeted
TCP: GOING FOR HUB STATUS
Terminal Conteineres de Paranagua (TCP) is progressively building container volume via innovatively consolidating and expanding its market reach. Rob Ward investigates
Majority owned by China Merchants Port Holdings (CM Port) since September 2017, Terminal Conteineres de Paranagua (TCP) in the southern state of Parana, Brazil, has been growing its container handling year by year, posting a throughput of 983,000TEU during 2020, up 5.3 per cent over 2019. Against this background of positive growth, it has embarked on an ambitious expansion programme which, it says, will increase annual capacity from today’s 2.5mTEU up to 3.5mTEU, and as part of this expansion achieve hub port status.
This year so far TCP has handled 740,186TEU during the first eight months which is up around 15 per cent on the 646,630TEU handled during the same period last year. The Parana state terminal now expects to comfortably drive through the 1mTEU per annum barrier for the first time by the end of this year. In fact, the latest forecast, made in midOctober, is that it will smash through the barrier towards the end of November, and end up with 1.1mTEU for 2021.
“Last year TCP’s growth in container handling was a 5.3 per cent increase over 2019, and that was three times the increase of most terminals,” says Thomas Lima, Commercial and Institutional Director for the company. And this year the end of year forecast is set at more than 14 per cent, while GDP is expected to rise to just under 5 per cent.
Ironically, by the end of September TCP had slipped from third biggest terminal in Brazil (behind Santos Brasil and BTP in Santos) to fourth biggest as Portonave (part of the Itajai Port Complex (IPC) and a southern states’ rival for TCP) just edged ahead as a result of its owner, MSC Line, increasing transshipment activity there.
CHICKEN EXPORT CAPITAL
The main driver of TCP’s success this year has been poultry exports and its almost perennial role as “Chicken Export Capital of the World”, which it occasionally loses to Itajai.
Some 185,192TEU of reefer boxes were handled in 2020, of which around 80 per cent is chicken, with pork and beef making up an equal 10 per cent each share of the rest. This year reefers look set to break 200,000TEU for the first time.
Another reason for this year’s throughput increase – TCP broke overall monthly records three times by end of September and also for reefer cargoes – has been increased boxes for/from Paraguay and also beef exports from the interior of Sao Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul. Lima says that additional Paraguay boxes and a good percentage of cargo currently shipped to/from Santos – which is in Sao Paulo – could come to Paranagua and 88 per cent of the 1.4m TEU shipped via the Santa Catarina ports.
He cites the example of Minerva Foods, which specialises in beef production.
“Minerva are mostly operating out of Sao Paulo state and until we put our latest multi modal logistics package together they were exporting 100 per cent out of the port of Santos,”
8 TCP ranks
among the leading container terminals in Brazil for reefer cargo with this playing a prominent part in its expected volume of over one million TEU this year – chicken accounts for around 80 per cent of the 200,000TEU of reefer cargo
explains Lima. “But now out of the 800 containers per month that they export we are handling 25 per cent, or 200, which is a considerable achievement.”
TCP notes that Minerva is now trucking some of its produce to the Cambé rail head, some 450km from Paranagua by road and only 100km from the Sao Paulo state border, and from Cambé it is transported down to the TCP terminal.
From the interior of the state of Santa Catarina TCP also ‘poaches’ boxes from the SC terminals, the two in IPC as well as Porto Itapoa (controlled by Maersk Line). Forest products (wood and, especially, pulp and paper) fill many of these on the export front and materials and spare parts for the automobile industry as well as electronic goods on the import side. Also strong are imports of fertilisers which totalled a record 33,809TEU in 2020, 28,43 per cent higher than the previous record of 2018.
Lima tells Port Strategy that under its concession rules TCP has to provide up to 10 days free storage to shippers, much more than its rivals and this is a benefit to customers complemented by superior logistics and add-on services,. “The benefits are manifest and so we are becoming first option for shippers and shipping lines, sometimes even those that have their own terminals,” he adds,
MOST IMPORTANT PROJECT
Lima also reports that a multi-million dollar logistics project (called KBT) involving Klabin, a major cellulose producer, railroad logistics outfit Brado and TCP, launched this year in September when the first train hauled 100s of containers of Klabin forest products 400km down to Paranagua. Montevideo, a return to Paranagua, after a 15-year hiatus with regard to soya shipments, has been gaining momentum all year. A severe drought this year has mostly impeded and often stopped the barge services along the River Parana, and so Paranagua has been used as an alternative and it might not be just short term as TCP is planning to try and persuade Paraguayan shippers to stay for the long haul.
HIGHER STILL
But both Lima and Campagnaro, believe that volumes could have been higher if not for carriers prioritising their own terminals over White Flag [neutral] players like TCP.
“We have gone to another level since China Merchants took over,” says Lima, “And now we are working hard towards realising our Big Project to increase our operating area by more than 50 per cent with a new logistics park.”
He explains that Plan A is for 300,000 more sq m and Plan B is for 200,000 extra sq m and discussions are ongoing with the authorities.
Lima says that he and his team are especially proud of their efforts in recent years to bring more and more cargoes in/out of TCP via the railroad at Cambé.
From January to the end of July this year, TCP handled 84,760TEU by rail, up 15 per cent from the 75,069TEU moved via rail in 2019, although the figure remains similar to 2020, Annual figures show a 2018 total of 107,000TEU by rail, 2019 registered 135,000TEU and last year accounts for 148,000TEU, each year representing the highest of all terminals in Brazil.
In the near future, says Lima, Cambé will be connected to the Novo Ferroeste rail network that is expanding out to Foz do Iguacu, and then to Guaira, both on the Paraguayan border, and will help facilitate the rapidly growing container flows from Asuncion and Cidade del Este, the two biggest cities in Paraguay, to the rest of the world, via Paranagua and TCP.
On top of this there is a plan – for a Bi-Oceanic corridor – to connect Paranagua to Paraguay and Bolivia, and then for a trucking connection over the high Andes to a north Chilean port, probably Antofagasta. This will fit in well with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
In terms of dredging TCP has increased its draft from 12.1m to 12.5m in July, and this year hosted its biggest ever vessel, a Yang Ming 12,700TEU capacity, 332 meters long, 48.2 m beam ship – albeit with draft restrictions. The terminal expects to have 13m by the end of this year and 15.5m by 2025, in line with APPA, the local port authority and the Brazilian Navy.
On the equipment side TCP deploys eight Ship to Shore Gantry Cranes (six of which are New Panamax) and two Mobile Harbour Cranes.
Klabin exports 150,000TEU per annum but that will increase to 120,000TEU per ‘‘ month with 80 per cent of this moving via TCP
“This is the single most important project for us to attract cargo,” says Lima adding that today Klabin exports 150,000TEU per annum but that this will increase to 120,000TEU per month once its new $1bn Puma II Project at Ortigueira gets fully up to speed in two years’ time, and 80 per cent of that exits through TCP.
Mateus Jose Campagnaro, Marketing and Logistics Manager, TCP, notes that the recent expansions by Klabin will catapult it into prime position in Brazil for the export of dry boxes.
“Presently Klabin is ranked about fourth or fifth in terms of the number of dry containers exported out of Brazil, but once this extension is fully up-and-running they will be the Number One,” states Campagnaro.
With 3,624 reefer plugs Lima claims TCP has the highest number of sockets in South America, although SPRC in Cartagena, Colombia might dispute that. But, in common with Cartagena, Paranagua has also been attracting shippers because capacity has been tight in many Brazilian terminals this year and the gap between throughput (about 1mTEU) and capacity (2.5mTEU) at TCP means no capacity shortage whatsoever, although empties have provided some headaches.
TCP further notes additional plugs will take it to 4000 early next year.
In terms of Paraguay, which usually exports/imports containerised cargo via barge from its capital Asuncion, and then transships onto liner services from Buenos Aires or
8 The 12,726TEU
