Brazil's dominance on world commodities markets over the centuries was built on the flow of ships through Santos, which is expected to triple movement of cargo over the next 15 years as it has over the past 20, the port authority said.

Latin America's largest port is poised to move a record 100 million tons of goods this year, up from 96 million in 2010. The port accounts for 26 percent of Brazilian trade.

The country's bond with the port is not likely to weaken in the future, despite the rise of smaller ports across vast country the size of the continental United States.

The world's biggest deep-water oil discoveries just off the coast of Santos will help guarantee the port's and surrounding area's importance as a staging ground for the off-shore production of so-called subsalt crude and natural gas.

"Studies show that Santos can triple its movement of goods over the next 15 years," said Jose Correia Serra, president of Codesp - the company that runs the port. "This port is Brazil's umbilical cord in trade with the world."

Serra said the port was roughly the same size as it was 20 years ago when it moved just over 30 million tonnes of cargo.

"We tripled movement entirely by logistic intelligence and this is key to future growth. But we will have to expand physically to triple again. We will build new terminals."

Brazil's history as a world leading exporter of soft commodities such as sugar, coffee and orange juice has been shaped by Santos, the main export corridor for these breakfast commodities as they are sometimes called.

One has only to look at the engineering feats of the modern highways, tunnels and railways leading down through the Serra do Mar mountain range to the coast.

Since the emergence of tropical soybeans, which allowed farmers to plant closer to the Equator and sow Brazil's vast center-west savanna with the oilseed, Santos has also become an important port for soy and corn shipments.

It now moves almost as much soy as Brazil's main grain port of Paranagua to the south. But the export of soybeans will increasingly spread with the new production areas, especially in the Amazon ports in the north, which will be a shorter haul from the main growing areas in the center-west, Serra said.

"But that will not be the case with sugar, coffee, orange juice or container movement. Those cargoes are linked to Santos and will not spread in the same way," Serra said.

Brazil dominates about half of the world trade in sugar and orange juice and a third of the world's coffee market.

INVESTMENTS AND OIL
Brazil plans to invest 1.3 billion reais ($813 million) in federal funds over the next four years to expand Santos, Minister of Ports Leonidas Cristino said.

"Santos is key to Brazil's growth," said Cristino on the sidelines of the International Forum on Santos Expansion.

Part of the investments will involve the widening of the main port channel from its current 150 meter width.

"We will finally remove that Greek freighter that sunk just on the edge of the channel 37 years ago," said Cristino.

Aside from the continued flow of agricultural commodities, Santos and the extended area will be vital for Brazil's production from subsalt oil reserves off the coast.

Brazil's state oil company Petrobras is close to moving ahead on a logistics base that it plans to build in Guaruja, the sister city to Santos that has terminals on the opposite side of the bay that separates it from Santos port.

"We already have seven rigs drilling in the Santos Basin," said Petrobras' general manager of Santos Basin exploration and production, Jose Luiz Marcusso. "In the coming years, we will have 600 support ships, 40 drilling rigs, which will required 15,000 workers in the Santos area." (Reuters)