Birthday present for Portonave

Of especial note was reefer cargoes climbed by 24.5% with exports also doing extremely and up 19.5% on the previous year. Frozen meat remained the main export product followed by timber and tobacco while plastic products accounted for the majority bulk of imports, despite a 3% decline from the previous year.

According to Renê Duarte, Portonave’s chief operational superintendent, during its five years of operation the company has handled a total of 2.4m teu which he attributes to the berthing of larger ships with higher cargo capacity, the capture of new shipping lines and the operational efficiency of the terminal. “In just five years we have become the leading container hander in Santa Catarina,” he added.

Despite Portonave increasing container handling volumes, it correspondingly reduced the number of vessels handled. In the first half of the year an average of 51 ships moored each month but this had fallen to 47 in the second half, reflecting the increasing number of vessels calling with lengths of more than 303 m.