Brazil’s Presidential Chief of Staff Office has instructed the Ports Ministry, in a recent technical note, to remove restrictions on shipping lines and double the minimum concession fee in the auction for the new mega container terminal at the Port of Santos, in São Paulo state.
Take a look at the container throughput for both inbound and outbound trade at the Port of Santos over the last three years, based on Datamar intelligence:
Container Throughput | Port of Santos | Jan 2023 – Mar 2026
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The document also clears the way for current container terminal operators at the port, such as Switzerland’s MSC and Denmark’s Maersk, to take part in the bidding for Tecon Santos 10, also known as STS 10, provided they sell their existing assets if they win.
The terms are set out in a 13-page technical note issued on Wednesday night (May 6) by the Investment Partnerships Program, which is linked to the Presidential Chief of Staff Office.
The new auction guidelines have been sent to the Ports Ministry, which is expected to forward them to Brazil’s waterway transport regulator, ANTAQ.
The minimum concession fee, previously set at 500 million reais, will rise to 1.044 billion reais.
Participation by shipping lines, which had been restricted following recommendations by Brazil’s federal audit court at the end of its review of the studies, will now be allowed. The court had raised concerns about the risk of vertical integration in operations, meaning the same company controlling both international shipping services and management of the new terminal.
“Besides not identifying competition-related reasons to prohibit the participation of shipping lines in the auction, ANTAQ did not point to any regulatory justification for adopting such a restriction. On the contrary, it concluded that such participation could result in productive, allocative and social inefficiencies,” one section of the technical note says.
China’s Cosco, along with Europe’s MSC and Maersk, had been strongly advocating for broader access in the auction. CMP, or China Merchants Ports, owner of TCP, the Paranaguá Container Terminal, had also raised concerns.
STS 10 calls for investment of more than 6 billion reais and is expected to expand container handling capacity at Latin America’s largest port by 50%, at a time when the facility is close to saturation.
The auction had originally been planned for late 2025, but the schedule slipped, especially because of corporate disputes over the auction model. Now, in the best-case scenario, it will take place in the second half of 2026, though there is a risk it could slip into 2027.
Companies such as the Philippines’ ICTSI and Brazil’s JBS, both interested in the terminal, favor a restricted, two-phase auction.
Under the model originally proposed by ANTAQ and endorsed by the federal audit court, current operators would be barred from participating in the first stage. They would only be allowed into a second phase if no bids were submitted in the initial round.
Later, the audit court recommended barring shipping lines as well.
That guidance was accepted by ANTAQ and the Ports Ministry until the Presidential Chief of Staff’s Office intervened and ordered the process suspended.
In the new technical note, the Investment Partnerships Program says “it is important to clarify that the federal government does not have a policy of encouraging new entrants to the detriment of existing operators.”
The new guideline is that current operators will be free to enter the terminal auction, provided they have “filed with the competent authorities the irrevocable and irreversible sale” of their equity stakes in other terminals at the port before signing the new contract.
“That measure addresses the risk raised of a player engaging in reckless conduct by delaying divestment and threatening operations. If such divestment does not take place, there will be no harm to the public authorities, since it will be possible to call the second-place bidder from the completed auction,” the technical note says.
“The greater the competition in the auction, the greater the chances of selecting the most efficient partner, one capable of reducing Brazil’s logistics costs and helping the country’s productive chain.”
Source: Daniel Rittner for CNN Infra
