Contrail enters into mega-agreement with MRS containers
Valor Econômico
To grab a considerable slice of the business of container transportation that is currently made on trucks till the port of Santos and "steal" them for the railroad modal, MRS Logística has just entered into with Contrail a commercial partnership that should become the greatest contract in the operation of that type of cargo in Brazil. The goal is to transfer to trains nearly 45% of the current movement of containers in Santos a year. Currently, only 3% arrive there on trains. "The partnership will change the face of container transportation", says, convinced, Guilherme Quintella, controlling shareholder of Contrail. According to him, it is an innovative model that will be adopted in Brazil for that type of operation, using special wagons. Another advantage, he points out, is that more than 1 million trucks they will be taken off the roads to Santos and from several cities such as São Paulo and others of the metropolitan region a year.
The forecast of the entrepreneur is that Contrail, at full capacity, annually carrying 1.2 million TEUs, makes nearly R$ 800 million (US$ 470.6 million) a year. The deal is formatted into three stages, within the period of five years, and it foresees total investments of R$ 600 million (US$ 352.9 million) in the period. The resources will be used in the construction of terminals to receive and distribute containers, in truck fleets and several pieces of equipment. MRS will also have to invest in the increase of the fleet of locomotives and manufacture of special double-stack wagons, which allow the stacking of up to two containers.
The first stage, says Quintella, will be implemented in a year and the plan is to get to the carriage of 300 thousand TEUs a year. It includes the construction of the Intermodal Terminal of the Port of Santos (TIPS, in Portuguese) in an area of 300 square meters, which belongs to MRS located in Cubatão (SP). "The terminal will work as a great hub, which will operate as a regulator and organizer of the rail flow of containers to the several terminals in the port of Santos", says Quintella. He emphasizes the TIPS will be a "white flag" terminal, that is, it will operate with containers of all shipowners and of all terminals in the region of Baixada Santista. The operation in the TIPS will already begin using double-stack wagons and the order of nearly 100 of those wagons is already in the plans of MRS.
In the second phase - within three years -, Contrail will install four intermodal terminals beside the rails of MRS at several points: one in the downtown region of São Paulo; another in the region known as ABC Paulista; a third one in the East Side of the Metropolitan Region of the Capital and a fourth in the region of Vale do Paraíba. Quintella says that those terminals, together with the TIPS, in Cubatão, will have condition to operate 700 thousand TEUs a year. That stage of the deal is subject to investments of R$ 230 million (US$ 135.3 million) MRS is making in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo and the descent of Serra do Mar to Santos to speed up the flow of cargo in the railroad.
The third stage of the MRS-Contrail agreement in the operation of containers relies heavily on an action of the Federal and State Governments on the transposition of cargo, through the rail modal, in São Paulo and neighboring municipalities of the capital. More and more the sharing of rails where passenger and cargo trains run through becomes impracticable and the problem tends to worsen with the expansion of the flow of passengers and products. The solution passes by the separation of more segments of the lines operated by the CPTM (São Paulo Metropolitan Train Company), on the rails of MRS, and the construction of a railroad beltway in the capital, providing a path bound to Santos. For the latter, there are two options: one to North, between Jundiaí and Rio Grande da Serra, which is what MRS would like, and another to the South of the city. The definition depends on a study ordered by the World Bank and which should be ready next year. That resolved, says Quintella, Contrail will build at least another two terminals along the line of MRS. One in the neighborhood of Lapa (West Side of the capital) and another in Jundiaí, 60 km from São Paulo. As a result, the company adds 500 thousand TEUs of carriage capacity a year, amounting to 1.2 million TEUs.