OREANDA-NEWS. A new milestone was reached in the construction work at Pier IV of the Ponta da Madeira Terminal in Sao Luis, Maranhao. On September 1st, there was a successful docking of a Valemax, the largest ore carrier in the world with a transportation capacity of 400,000 metric tons. The loading of ship Vale Caofeidian with 391,000 metric tons of iron ore attested to the efficiency of the newly installed embarkation system.

Pier IV is being built in Sao Luis and its first stage, the South berth, was concluded in the first half of this year. The docking of a Valemax class ship at the new berth represents the final part of the evaluation of the efficiency and safety of this logistics asset of ours, which, together with other investments, will raise the transportation capacity of our North System to 230 million metric tons per year by 2018.

In 2010, Vale started the construction of Pier IV to increase the embarkation capacity of Ponta da Madeira. The construction is part of the first stage of logistics capacity expansion (CLN 150), and aims to increase the current ore transportation and embarkation capacity by 20 million metric tons, reaching 150 million metric tons in 2014. This investment will offset the production increase of the mines already installed in Carajas, Para.

Ports capable of accommodating Valemax ore carriers

So far, Valemax ships call at seven ports around the world - Villanueva (Philippines), Tubarao and Ponta da Madeira (Brazil), Taranto (Italy), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Sohar (Oman) and Oita (Japan) - as well as a floating iron ore transhipment station in Subic Bay, in the Philippines.

Pier IV

The construction of Pier IV is considered the largest port infrastructure project under way in Latin America, composed of two docking berths, a 1,620-metres-long access bridge, a quay for tugboats and a 2,000-square-metre operations platform.