Seatrade-Maritime: Brazil clears shipping lines to bid for Santos mega terminal

Published by Seatrade-Maritime

Brazil’s Presidential Chief of Staff Office has instructed the Ports Ministry, in a recent technical note issued last Wednesday, 6 May to remove restrictions on shipping lines and double the minimum concession fee in the auction for the new mega container terminal at the Port of Santos, in São Paulo state.

The instructions fill a 13-page technical note, by the Investment Partnerships Programme, which is linked to the Presidential Chief of Staff Office, and is expected to be sent to the Ports Ministry and the waterway transport regulator, ANTAQ.

The document clears the way for current container terminal operators at the port, such as MSC and Maersk, to take part in the bidding for Tecon Santos 10 (STS 10), provided they sell their existing assets if they win.

The minimum concession fee, previously set at BRL500 million reais, will rise to BRL1.044 billion ($102,000 —$210,000).

Following months of coming and going, the participation of the shipping lines’ ports operators, which had been restricted following recommendations by Brazil’s federal audit court at the end of its review of the studies, will now be allowed. 

“Besides not identifying competition-related reasons to prohibit the participation of shipping lines in the auction, ANTAQ did not point to any regulatory justification for adopting such a restriction. On the contrary, it concluded that such participation could result in productive, allocative and social inefficiencies,” one section of the technical note says.

International companies such as China’s Cosco Shipping, Europe’s MSC and Maersk, China Merchants Ports (CMP), owner of TCP, the Paranaguá Container Terminal, had previously raised concerns and strongly advocated for broader access to the auction. 

Companies such as the Philippines’ ICTSI and Brazil’s JBS which do not have a presence in Santos, both interested in the terminal, favor a restricted, two-phase auction.

STS 10 calls for investment of more than $1.2 billion and should expand container handling capacity at Latin America’s largest port by 50%, which is  a close to saturation.

The auction had originally been planned for late 2025, but postponed several times and now, in the best-case scenario, it will take place in the second half of 2026, though there is a risk it could slip into 2027.

In the new technical note, the Investment Partnerships Programme says “it is important to clarify that the federal government does not have a policy of encouraging new entrants to the detriment of existing operators.”

The  guidelines state that current operators will be free to enter the terminal auction, provided they have “filed with the competent authorities the irrevocable and irreversible sale” of their equity stakes in other terminals at the port before signing the new contract.

“That measure addresses the risk raised of a player engaging in reckless conduct by delaying divestment and threatening operations. If such divestment does not take place, there will be no harm to the public authorities, since it will be possible to call the second-place bidder from the completed auction,” the technical note says.

“The greater the competition in the auction, the greater the chances of selecting the most efficient partner, one capable of reducing Brazil’s logistics costs and helping the country’s productive chain.”