São Sebastião starts dredging and maintenance works
Valor Econômico - 04/16/2008
The port of São Sebastião, located on the North coast of São Paulo, is going to start the dredging and maintenance of its wharves in 15 days, which will allow it to operate ships of greater load capacity. Since the environmental license has already been granted by the Environmental Department of the State, the port intends to reach the uniform depth of 8 meters in the internal bottom and from 9 to 9.5 meters at the main berth, to be defined by means of structural monitoring. The volume to be dredged corresponds to 140 thousand cubic meters of sediments, at the cost of R$ 1.7 million (US$ 971.4 thousand), according to a contract entered into with Ester Engenharia. The license is good for five years. In this period other dredging may be made to maintain the depths. With the dredging, "the port will have capacity to receive ships with up to 40 thousand tons of solid bulks, such as sodium carbonate, and will ship up to four thousand vehicles, besides new boats that currently seek for other wharves", evaluates Frederico Bussinger, president of Companhia Docas de São Sebastião, connected to the government of São Paulo. He reckons that there will be results for the operations of the port in 90 days. Among the operations to be started is the provision of supplies to Petrobras' Mexilhão rig, whose gas pipeline has already gotten the environmental license as well. São Sebastião handled 489 thousand tons of several types of loads in 2007 and its initial goal is to double its capacity within 12 months.