May 9, 2020

 

Brazil's Itaqui port remains open amid COVID-19 lockdown

 

 

Despite lockdown measures imposed this week in Maranhão state due to COVID-19, Brazil's Itaqui port, from where over 10% of the country's soybeans were exported last year, has remained open, an official said, reported Reuters.

 

Port activity is considered exempt from the order and personnel, rail services and trucks continue to have normal access to the port area, said Ted Lago, the port's president.

 

He said grain export volume was set to rise at Itaqui thanks to the resilience of the domestic farm sector.

 

Itaqui projects a 16% increase in January-May grain exports to 4.3 million tonnes, mainly soy, driven by a weak Brazilian currency. It also forecasts a 65% rise in fertiliser imports for the January-May period, to 986,000 tonnes, as Brazilian farmers buy more in advance for the 2020/2021 harvest, Lago said.

 

"Even with a grim outlook for the state of Maranhão's economy, the port has held strong," Lago said.

 

Maranhão's capital São Luis, in the area where the port is located, became Brazil's first major city to begin a coronavirus lockdown this week.

 

Though the lockdown temporarily halted port expansion work, this should be completed around July, increasing the port's total grain handling capacity to 19 million tonnes, Lago said.

 

In addition to grains, Itaqui can move minerals, fertilisers, fuel and wood pulp consignments. Because global demand for N95 respirators increased amid the COVID-19 pandemic, so have wood pulp exports via Itaqui, Lago said, alluding to the raw material used to produce the protective equipment.

 

More than 60 companies operate at Itaqui, including multinationals Glencore, Vale, Louis Dreyfus and Toyota Tsusho Crop. Itaqui is Brazil's closest deepwater port to the Panama Canal, and has for years relied on grains to boost shipping volumes.

 

In 2019, Brazil exported 8.1 million tonnes of soybeans and three million tonnes of corn from Itaqui, according to port data.

 

About 60% of the grains exported out of Itaqui arrive by rail and 40% by road, an advantage given the poor state of some local roads that sometimes are the only way to get export cargoes to port.

 

"We are a grains port and are making expansions. Volumes have been good, above forecast," Lago said.