Brazil P&I our correspondents in Santos, Brazil, has provided us with the following information.
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Firefighters declared the extinguish of the fire at the port of Santos
The Commander of the Fire Department, Marco Aurelio Pinto, announced that the fire that began on April 2nd was extinguished at 10 am on April, 10th but it was necessary to have all the guarantees prior to officially announcing the extinction of the flames.
According to Pinto this was the most complex casualty of this type in Brazil, and will require a review of all security plans going forward. This lesson is not restricted to Brazil, and must apply to the whole world, due its critical form of occurrence, said Mr. Pinto. He pointed out that the integrated control of the occurrence was the main factor for the success of the operation. Pinto thanked the support of the companies Petrobras, Braskem, BASF, Rumo, Stolhavem among others.
The fire reached six tanks of a park with hundreds of tanks. The Municipality suspended all ULTRACARGO activities in the city until legal requirements are adopted to ensure the security of the site, including payment of fines up to R$ 50 million reais (USD 16 million), only by the city.
The Public Prosecutors established a deadline of 10 days for Ultracargo present explanations for the casualty and the police opened an investigation to establish the causes of the fire. The prosecutors plan to claim for indemnification for the damages to the environment.
Port Operations return to normal by tomorrow, said CODESP
The operations of the Port of Santos should return to normal today and tomorrow, according to estimative from CODESP, the Port Authority.
The Brasil Terminal Portuário (BTP), installation specialized in container operations, neighboring unit of Ultracargo, provides everything to return to normal until the beginning of next week. “Today (April 13th), our estimative for solid bulk cargo is to reach 50% of the capacity. Tomorrow, we hope to get close to full movement. We are considering Wednesday as the “D” day. This must be that day in which the movement should be fully resumed, and roads released, “said the director of Strategic Planning and Control from CODESP, Luis Claudio Santana Montenegro.
Over last weekend, the movement of containers was below 10% of the port capacity and the flow of bulk was also low.
DELAYS
Despite the partial resume of port routines, BTP is still adding delays and damages arising out of the fire. According to the company, during the nine days of the fire combat 13 ships missed call at the terminal, which prevented the loading and unloading of about 17 thousand containers. 19,000 trucks also were preventing from loading/discharging cargo. Other terminals are also calculating losses due to this casualty.
Liquid bulk
The liquid bulk shipments at Alemoa terminal, restricted for most of the duration of the fire returned last Saturday, with the berthing of ships NILZA and AMAZON EXPLORER.
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