Brazil generates more than 40 percent of its export revenue from a vast range of commodities, both agricultural produce and minerals but its ports have been choking up more frequently as its red hot economy puts strain on its infrastructure.
A national program that began in 2007 to scoop 79 million tons of muck from the beds of access canals and berths at 18 ports at a cost of 1.6 billion reais ($942 million) is to be mostly completed by mid-2011.
"We will have 30 percent more capacity than at the start of the program," said Fabrizio Pierdomenico, secretary of planning and port development and a former director at Santos port. He said the increase in capacity would vary by port.
"Instead of working with two 60,000-ton ships, you can use one 120,000-ton ship. You gain in efficiency and add capacity to the port," he said, adding commodities producers could be assured they would benefit from cost savings.
"It's as if you are adding more berths," he said.
A second phase of the dredging program starting in 2011 will extend the deepening along secondary canals that branch off from main access routes, and extend dredging to other ports. It will cost 1 billion reais and take four years.
The shortcomings of Brazil's ports were never more visible than in mid-2010 when ships queued for as long as a month to load sugar. Though a one-off coincidence of high demand and wet weather halted loading, faster turn-arounds and access for larger ships could have lessened its severity.
The top two sugar ports in Brazil, Santos and Paranagua, should complete their dredging work by the end of June and the end December 2011, respectively.
Brazil's national center for navigation, Centronave, says the country's ports are among the most costly in the world and says from January to September, ships spent a combined total of eight years waiting to load and unload.
The inadequate depth of canals means some ships can only operate partially loaded at Brazil's ports as they would otherwise run aground if carrying a full cargo.
Brazil is also the world's top exporter of iron ore but the country's top producer of the steel ingredient, Vale , ships through its own privately run ports.
Road, Rail Problems Remain
The largest and most costly project, the dredging of a 17-km (10.6-mile) canal at the port of Rio Grande in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul was completed in July and enabled a Panamax vessel to berth there for the first time in November.
Ports in the south of the country will need regular maintenance dredging, once or twice a year, as sediment tends to build up faster there, Pierdomenico said. Ports in the north and northeast can go two or three years without maintenance.
Mud dredged from the ports is shipped out to sea and dumped at locations approved by the environmental regulator and where currents are present to disperse it evenly over the sea bed.
Pierdomenico said once the problem of waterway access has been resolved, other bottlenecks are likely to become more prominent.
"When you remove this blockage others will appear. Ports will have to deal with the problem of access roads and railways to get there and the shortening of queues," Pierdomenico said.
Investments from the same infrastructure program funding the dredging, known as the Accelerated Growth Program (PAC), will also pay for the construction of two railways, one descending from the north and the running east and west. They will interlink with several existing smaller rail networks.
Pierdomenico, speaking to Reuters in an interview at the headquarters of the port secretariat, specially set up in 2007 to tackle port bottlenecks, said further efficiency gains would come from a "paper-free port" program to cut bureaucracy.
Some 900 documents are needed to process each ship passing through the coun
