The sector saw high investments in 2024, such as the start of construction work at Porto Central and progress towards the delivery of Porto da Imetame
Por Cristiano Stefenoni
The strategic location and constant investments in the ports of Espírito Santo make Espírito Santo a reference in the country's port activities. There are six operational ports, which handle 25% of the goods imported and exported in the country.
Currently, the State occupies the fourth national position in “millions of tons” traded in its ports.
This has a direct impact on foreign trade, which reached US$20.97 billion in the year to October, 33.82% more than in the same period last year. Exports from Espírito Santo totaled US$8.91 billion and imports totaled US$12 billion in 2024, according to data from Connect Fecomércio-ES/Comexstat.
The ports of Vitória and Vila Velha alone, managed by VPorts, closed the first quarter of the year with 1.8 million tons handled, an increase of 27% compared to the same period in 2023. The highlight was the movement of vehicles, which went from 14 thousand units last year to 43 thousand in 2024, an increase of 273%. General cargo grew 61%, with 162 thousand tons handled.
Overall, the Port of Vitória handles around 7 million tons of cargo annually, making it one of the main coastal and long-haul ports in the country. Other notable ports include the Port of Barra do Riacho and the Port of Tubarão, one of the largest exporters of iron ore in the world, with a handling capacity of up to 100 million tons per year.
The Connect Fecomércio-ES/Comexstat survey also highlights new ports that will expand the state's logistics capacity, such as Porto Imetame, in Aracruz, a private, multipurpose port with an initial capacity to handle 12 million tons per year. There is also Porto Central, in Presidente Kennedy, which is expected to handle up to 25 million tons per year, and Porto Petrocity, in São Mateus, which is focused on general and containerized cargo and aims to handle 6 million tons per year.
However, the president of the Infrastructure and Energy Thematic Council of Findes, Gustavo Peters Barbosa, speaks of the challenges faced by the sector in view of the high demand of foreign trade, which will require significant changes in infrastructure works to facilitate logistics. This is because the National Land Transportation Agency (ANTT) must consider the early renewal of the Ferrovia Centro Atlântica (FCA), which will bring investments that can directly impact the flow of cargo to the ports of Espírito Santo, in addition to the resumption of the duplication works of BR-101, which were paralyzed and there was already an understanding of the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) for the return of the contract.
“In 2024, we discussed the need for railways that cross the Brazilian Midwest towards the Espírito Santo coast, such as the Ferrovia Centro Atlântica (FCA) and the EF-118 that connects Vitória to the south of the state. The importance of this topic is that a port depends on the logistics network to reach its full operational capacity,” says the president.
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