Paraná and the Federal Government sign unprecedented concession for the Paranaguá channel

At the end of the first five years of the concession, the concessionaire will deepen the channel to 15.5 meters (Claudio Neves/Portos do Paraná)

The Government of Paraná, responsible for managing the state’s ports, and the Federal Government will sign this Wednesday (11) the concession contract for the waterway access channel to Paranaguá and Antonina.

The concession, unprecedented in Brazil, received a concession fee bid of R\$ 276 million and will guarantee more than R\$ 1.2 billion in investments in the first five years, allocated to the expansion, maintenance, and operation of the waterway channel.

The concession auction, held in October last year at the Stock Exchange (B3) in São Paulo, was ratified on December 4. The Consórcio Canal Galheta Dragagem (CCGD) — formed by the companies FTS Participações Societárias S.A., Deme Concessions NV, and Deme Dredging NV — will act as the concessionaire for the next 25 years.

The bidding procedure, until its conclusion with ratification, had to comply with a series of requirements carefully evaluated by the technical staff of the Agência Nacional de Transportes Aquaviários (Antaq) to verify the regularity of all procedures.

After the contract is signed, the company must submit the implementation project. Once approved, authorization will be granted for the start of the works. During the first two years of operation, the consortium will have to begin bathymetric surveys (mapping of the channel bed topography) and hydrographic surveys (which include environmental, engineering, and navigation studies), which are essential for the execution of the entire project.

Stages

The economic-financial model was structured with strict control rules. Among the planned improvements are widening, rock removal, and deepening operations until the desired draft is reached. In parallel, maintenance dredging will be carried out to ensure safe navigability, in addition to the implementation of the signaling system.

At the end of the first five years of the concession, the concessionaire must deepen the channel to guarantee an operational draft — the distance between the deepest point of the vessel and the water surface — of 15.5 meters. Currently, the draft is 13.3 meters.

The increase of more than two meters in draft represents a significant leap in cargo loading capacity, allowing an additional capacity of up to one thousand containers or 14 thousand tonnes of solid vegetable bulk on a single vessel.

The concessionaire will charge an infrastructure usage tariff, paid by all vessels that access the ports.