Brazil: Transpetro Starts Construction of Rio Tiete Shipyard in Aracatuba

Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, took part in the laying of the cornerstone for the Rio Tietê Shipyard this Tuesday (13) in Araçatuba, São Paulo. Orders placed under Transpetro’s Promef Waterway program made the yard feasible. The program is a milestone in Brazilian ethanol logistics, as it will make widespread use of the Tietê-Paraná Waterway to flow production from Midwestern and Southeastern Brazil.

The Rio Tietê Shipyard will build 80 barges and 20 pushers for the Promef Waterway, which is part of the waterway version of the Transpetro Fleet Modernization and Expansion Program (Promef). In total, R$432.3 million are expected to be invested in the vessels. Of this amount, R$371.3 million will be financed by the Merchant Marine Fund (MMF) in the first transaction that will have the Caixa Econômica Federal as the fund transfer agent.

“We are taking the shipbuilding industry to the interior of the country. In the past, it relied on regions bathed by the sea. What we are doing here is revolutionary: we are putting the industry on river banks,” said President Dilma. In addition to Rio Tietê, the Promef has already made the Atlântico Sul (EAS) and Promar shipyards, in Pernambuco, and the Superpesa, in Rio, feasible. Transpetro has commissioned 41 vessels to transport oil and oil products, a total investment worth R$9.6 billion. Eight other ships are currently in their final bidding phase.

The barges and pushers the Rio Tietê Shipyard will build will form 20 convoys with capacity to transport 7.6 million liters each. Waterway transportation emits a quarter of the carbon dioxide and consumes twenty times less fuel than the amount required to transport the same load over the same distance on roads. Each convoy consists of four barges and a pusher and has a load capacity equivalent to that of 172 trucks or 86 rail cars. Vessel design also allows oil product shipments, thus improving the supply logistics for Midwestern Brazil.

“Promef Waterway will have a fleet of cutting-edge barges and pushers,” said Transpetro CEO Sergio Machado. “The convoys will help take less expensive fuel to the new economic frontiers of Brazil and to bring ethanol in a more competitive, less polluting manner,” he added. The vessels will be delivered from 2012, and the fleet is expected to start operating in 2013. When in full operation, in 2015, the convoys will eliminate the equivalent of 80,000 truck trips per year.”

Involving investments of some R$40 million, the Rio Tietê Shipyard construction work will create 500 direct and 2,000 indirect jobs in Araçatuba. Operating Transpetro’s new river fleet, meanwhile, will open 400 positions. The shipyard is controlled by Rio Maguari S.A. and Estre Petróleo.

During a ceremony held in Araçatuba, Transpetro and Caixa Econômica Federal signed the credit facility agreement for Promef Waterway. The Federal and the State of São Paulo governments signed a memorandum of intent for investments in the Tietê-Paraná Waterway.

Participating in the event were the governor of the state of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin; ministers Paulo Sérgio Passos, of Transports, and Helena Chagas, of the Social Communications Secretariat; Araçatuba mayor, Cido Sério; and Petrobras’ downstream director, Paulo Roberto Costa, among other authorities.

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Source: tbpetroleum, September 14, 2011;