March 26, 2007

 

Cargill's closed Amazon port had no nearby shipments due

 

 

Cargill said a sudden judicial order on Friday (Mar 23) evening by a federal judge in Brasilia to shut down its Amazon River port has had no effect on nearby soybean shipments, a company spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires Sunday.

 

On Saturday morning, federal police and environmental agents moved to shut down Cargill's export terminal in Santarem, Para on the Amazon River over a four-year legal dispute regarding an environmental impact study Cargill said was not required by law.

 

The port ships roughly one million tonnes of soybeans to world markets each year. It is not used to ship any other commodity. A Cargill corporate communications official in Sao Paulo said the company would redirect soy shipments out of other ports to honour shipping orders.

 

Cargill said in a press release Friday evening it would challenge the court's decision. The troubled port has been the brunt of judicial action since it opened in 2003.

 

"We find ourselves caught in a jurisdictional dispute between the state and federal government about which regulations have precedence," Cargill spokeswoman Lori Johnson told the Associated Press Saturday.

 

"When we built the facility the permits were issued by the state. The permitting agency was the port and the state of Para. We did an environmental assessment and all of the assessments required by the permitting authorities," she said.

 

In a first hearing back in 2004, a federal judge ordered an additional environmental impact study be completed. The judge said Cargill could do the second study without having to temporarily cease operations, according to Cargill.

 

Cargill appealed the notion of a second study to another federal court in Brasilia and essentially heard back from that court in Friday's ruling. Cargill said the judge's decision goes against a ruling to keep the port open until the final impact study was reviewed, and that the judge who ordered the port closed Friday had never ruled on the appeal whether a new study was required by law.

 

Less than two weeks ago, Cargill said it was confident the port would stay open, despite the local public prosecutor's office in Santarem and the country's environmental protection agency, Ibama, threatening to shut it down Feb 27.