Log-In invests in transport between ports
Valor Econômico
The arrival this year of ships with capacity above 7 thousand TEUs will boost the already heated market of "feeder" navigation. In it, smaller vessels distribute the cargo of large seagoing vessels, which because they are larger they tend the dock only in the so-called hub ports, the hub ports. The evaluation is the commercial officer of Log-In Intermodal, Fabio Siccherino. Specialized in navigation, port operation and logistics services, the company has more than doubled the container feeder operations last year, getting to 32.3 TEUs operated. The result led to growth of 8.5% in the representativeness of the feeders in coastal shipping of Log-In, which ended the year at 159.9 thousand TEUs. Besides the service of the feeders, the shipping arm is made up by coastal shipping (transport of cargo originated and with destination in the country) and the Mercosur service, which includes the countries of the economic block.
Ship owners of seagoing vessels such as Hamburg Süd, Maersk Line and CSAV have already announced they will use more and larger container ships in the traffic with Brazil this year. Those ships tend to concentrate the moorings in key ports, where the cargo will be redirected to other points. The modality should grow both in absolute volumes and in participation, says the Executive, who prefers not to make projections - Log-In is a listed company. Questioned whether the company studies to designate vessels exclusively for the segment, Siccherino says they do. Today, two container ships (Log-In Rio and Log-In Santos, both with nominal capacity for 1,254 TEUs) have routes considered more favorable to capture such type of goods, basically between Santos (SP) and Suape (PE).
Log-In has a shipbuilding program in Brazil that allows the chartering of vessels during the period of the works. This year Log-In Jacarandá and Jatobá, nominal capacity for 2,800 TEUs, go into operation. The investment in each gets to nearly R$ 140 million (US$ 82.4 million). They are the first two to be delivered of a package of five container ships and two bulk carriers hired by the company.
Another bet of Log-In is on the increase of coastal shipping, whose volumes grew 20% compared to 2009, getting to 68 thousand TEUs. Siccherino points out as opportunities for coastal shipping the growth of the economies of North and Northeast that have grown up to 8%, and the ingress of more people in class C. Today, he stresses out, much more people consume foods and beverages, hygiene and cleaning items and electronics - especially the goods that grow the fastest in coastal shipping. But there is still a great market to achieve.
A survey ordered by the company to a consulting company estimates the Brazilian shipowners in coastal shipping transported in 2010 only 29% of their potential universe. To get to such percentage, the study took into account the carriage of 1.2 billion tons through roads. Excluding bulk transportation, the intrastate and interstate flows are no competition to sea freight, nearly 36 million tons with the coastal shipping profile were carried by trucks. Turned into containers, the amount corresponds to 2.2 million TEUs. Also removing cargo distant from the ports, small companies with no regular shipping and the segment of fractioned goods from such universe, the potential universe of coastal shipping in 2010 corresponded to 1.2 million TEUs.