RTRS - Brazil grain ship lineup swells, dock strike set for Friday
Posted by Labels: Trader's highlightBRASILIA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Strong global demand for Brazil's big corn and soybean crops has two to three times more ships lined up to load at its two main ports than a year earlier and to complicate loadings a six-hour dock workers strike is set for Friday.
Fifty-nine ships were waiting to load grain at Santos port on Thursday versus 29 a year ago, data from SA Commodities/Unimar showed. At the other main grain port, Paranagua, 82 ships were waiting compared with 31 ships this time last year.
The long queues, which are costly for shippers, reflect strong demand after drought reduced output in the top soy producer the United States and No. 2 grower Brazil last year.
They are set to get longer still when the harvest peaks next month. Port worker strikes set for Friday and Tuesday are exacerbating what is already expected to be one of the most challenging seasons ever for grain logistics in Brazil.
Brazil is expected to export a record soybean crop and large sugar and corn crops, but has a shortage of road haulage and port capacity.
The management at Paranagua, the most important grain port in Brazil, said in a Thursday statement it was "apprehensive" about the two work stoppages because of the intense shipping traffic, even though the strikes are to last just six hours each.
"At a time when the flow of bulk is large because of the harvest, stoppages like this can create all kinds of
problems and losses," said Luiz Henrique Dividino, superintendent at the port authority of Paranagua.
Dock workers are striking to protest forthcoming changes to regulations governing port operations, which they say will lead to wage cuts and job losses by ending the obligation for terminals to hire workers through a centralized agency.
The government says the rule changes are needed to boost competitiveness as it seeks to attract billions of dollars in investment to expand port capacity to cope with burgeoning commodity exports.
The dock workers, represented by the umbrella union Forca Sindical, have not ruled out longer stoppages later on to prevent the changes being passed in Congress. Friday's strike will begin at 7 a.m. local time and end at 1 p.m.
Isis Markarian, a representative at shipping agency SA Commodities/Unimar at Santos port, said the strike was unlikely to have much effect on operations there since few laborers were involved in the bulk loading of ships via conveyor belt.
Several commodity trading houses with their own port operations were also switching over to bulk loading of grain instead of sugar which might help clear some of the growing backlog, she said.
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