Port of Santos records best ever Q1 container volume

Santos saw March container operations increase by 7.6% to 336,250 teu leading to an accumulated of 1.02m teu during the January-March period, up 15.4% compared to the same period a year ago.

Santos' share of container cargo in the country, based on the latest data released by the National Water Transportation Agency (Antaq) in February, reached 39%, up two percentage points over 2019.

The second-best placed port was Itajaí (SC), that accounted for 12% of Brazil's container handling share.

The first impacts of COVID-19 on the movement of these cargoes began to be felt in the last two weeks of March, since, on average, the travel time on the Asia/Santos route is 45 days. They are expected to become more intense from April onwards, especially in trade with Asia and possibly Europe.

The challenge of mapping out prospects for the movement of containerised cargo in the coming months is extremely high, given the high degree of uncertainty about the economic and social impacts of the pandemic on a global scale, depending on the severity and duration of the quarantines imposed in Brazil and in various parts of the world.