February 28, 2007

 

Cargill's Amazon Port possibly closing next week

 

 

Cargill Agricola's soybean port on the Amazon River could be shut down by judicial order as early as next week, a Brazilian environmental agency official told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday (Feb 27).

 

"It is highly probable that that port will be at least temporarily shut down by next week," said Nilson da Silva Viera, the environmental protection agency's manager in Santarem, Para, where the port is located.

 

A federal prosecutor in Para ordered the facility to be closed down Monday, citing the roughly four-year absence of an environmental impact study required to build the port. The court ordered the environmental agency, known as Ibama, to study the judicial decision over the next 10 days for the agency to carry out the suspension of operations at the Santarem port. Viera is in charge of overseeing the Cargill facility.

 

Viera said he has not seen the judicial order yet and has not yet had contact with Cargill in Para.

 

Cargill's Sao Paulo office said in a press release late Tuesday that it had not received the court decision and could not comment on its contents.

 

Viera said that the main issue was that, "Cargill has to present us with a new (impact) study. That's their only hope at this point."

 

Cargill said in a report on its website that it has followed all the permitting requirements of the applicable government agencies for the construction and operation of the Santarem facility. Cargill says that a "particular type of environmental impact assessment ... not required by the government" has caused the legal battle over the port, and that the company would abide by the court's decision to get that report if proven mandatory.

 

Cargill also said in the press release that Ibama did not have jurisdiction over environmental policies at the port, and that this was in the hands of Para Port Authority which has manifested in favour of Cargill's operations last year.

 

The port is currently operating normally. Some 2 million tonnes of soybeans have been shipped out of the Santarem port over the last three years. Of the total, 56,000 tonnes were produced on nearby farms in Para. The rest were transported up river from the soybelt regions in the centre-west.

 

Cargill is one of the world's leading food and farm commodity trading companies.

 

Cargill's terminal in Para, located in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, has been under pressure from environmental groups for the last three years. In 2006, Greenpeace activists prohibited the loading and shipping of soybeans they said were being farmed illegally in the Amazon.

 

Brazil is the world's no. 2 soy producer and exporter behind the US.