Ports of San Antonio Este and Posadas: Realities of an aging and inert logistics system (Juan Carlos Donato)

On February 3, 1983, the Port of San Antonio Este was officially inaugurated and eighteen days later it received the first ship call. The sustained growth of exports of the fruit from the upper valley of Río Negro and Neuquén, which was exported through Buenos Aires territory, required a maritime station close to the production area to improve costs and competitiveness of the product.

In 1990 with the reform of the State, like all the ports in the country, San Antonio Este was provincialized and in 1997 the Terminal de Servicios Portuarios Norte SA privatized, of the Murchison group in partnership with the Consorcio Económico Frutícola Concentrado. At the end of the 1990s, it was necessary to resort to benefit programs for Patagonian ports and refunds for exports from those maritime stations, which helped to maintain achieved standards.

With time the promotions ended and from there, each harvest shipped fewer pears, apples and juices, a trend that could no longer be reversed, we must draw the parallel with the Port of Mar del Plata, which suffers the same problem; both depend on a single activity, the Buenos Aires port for fishing and the Patagonian port for fruit, and were left at the mercy of the ups and downs of the market that provided their only support.

They lost positioning of products in the world and two actors appeared that further damage the port system: the logistical asymmetry that generates cannibalism between Argentine ports, according to data from the concessionaire company of the port of San Antonio, in recent years there has been a marked diversion of fruit and vegetable trade to other national ports that capture cargo from its hinterland and finally the truck, which transports part of that production to Chile to be exported through ports of the trans-Andean country.

In 2019, the managers of the company that operates the terminal announce that it works at 30% of the operating capacity and five years that do not register profits. The seriousness of the situation meant that, in December 2021, one year after taking office as Governor of Río Negro, Arabela Carreras put the problem “Fruit is no longer enough to keep the Port of San Antonio Este alive” on the public agenda.

She had been warned that the pandemic aggravated the crisis described above and that the port of her province was entering a cone of shadows. Immediately, the Río Negro president added “Gas and oil are already a reality in Vaca Muerta and will be essential in this transition scenario, we are going to propose and work so that the gas, which passes through our land, is exported through our port ”.

No member of her cabinet explained to Governor Carreras that the port of San Antonio Este does not have a structure to become an energy port, therefore, the investment would be astronomical, impossible to face with provincial funds, in addition to the 550 kilometers of distance with Vaca Muerta, which has the main Argentine energy port (Bahía Blanca) just over 250 kilometers from the route of the future gas pipeline; the idea is technically and financially unfeasible. The following graph shows the precipitous drop in the volume of cargo operated in 2021/22, the lowest in the history of this port.

The first week of February, a ship arrived that loaded 170 containers of fruit that were transshipped in the port of Santos in Brazil. Concern about the constant drop in activity haunts the offices of the port company and grows in offices of the Provincial Government.

During the last week, the portals specialized in transportation and foreign trade showed with great titles the reactivation of the Port of Posadas, after 45 years without operating. The ports are a sounding board in the regional economies, in this case the Northeast (NEA). It is always convenient to make a historical review of each situation, to put us in context and help us in the analysis and conclusions.

The previous Misionero Government, headed by Hugo Passalacqua, had two resounding failures to grant concessions for this port: the first tender in May 2017 where two UTEs (Transitory Business Unions) competed – the Paraguayan port operator group Fénix and an Argentine group led by the Argenmar Shipping Company; In December of the same year, the Government surprisingly decided to declare said tender void because according to provincial officials, the companies did not comply with the requirements of the specifications.

This was the case, until in the first months of 2018, a new tender was called to concession the Port of Posadas and the two groups that had submitted a year ago were invited. Only the Paraguayan group Fénix acquired specifications and in June of that year the envelopes were opened, and again the Provincial Government, without further explanation and with the same argument, declared the tender void.

This time there were repercussions with strong claims from the Paraguayan side. In August, directors of the Fénix group went to the Governor’s own office to ask for explanations that never came, rumors spread of a report by the then Minister of Security of the Nation, Patricia Bullrich to the Governor. Passalacqua that linked the Paraguayan group to drug trafficking activities and suggested that they not grant them that port. At the end of 2018, it was decided not to bid again and that the Provincial State take over the administration and operation of that port terminal.

On December 10, 2019, the new Provincial Government arrived, led by Oscar Herrera Ahuad and immediately began the process of putting the port into operation. Months of unsuccessful search for shippers, shipping companies and infrastructure, until on Friday, October 9, 2020, the late Minister of Transportation Mario Meoni, accompanied by the then President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation Sergio Massa signed an agreement with the Governor and allocated 150 million pesos for the acquisition of technical equipment necessary to optimize the operation of the new port terminal, which includes the incorporation of a Liebherr LHM 180 type mobile crane, a Liebherr LRS 545 type Reach Stacker mobile crane and a Pallet scanner by X-rays of the Nuctech CX150180S type.

A year later, the port was still not operating and Herrera Ahuad, showing annoyance in a journalistic note, found two culprits: the National Cabotage Law and the Argentine fluvio-maritime unions as factors impeding the operation of the port and in turn publicly requested that the Ministry of Transportation, make the navigation regulations more flexible and release the flag in the Paraná River – Argentine Section, so that Bolivian and Paraguayan flagged vessels can carry out national cabotage.

Finally, on Saturday, February 18, the Governor indulged himself and together with the Minister of Transportation of the Nation, greeted effusively from the dock, the departure of the convoy made up of the Argentine-flagged push tug “Carolina” and two flagged barges. Bolivian (Touax Camila and Touax Lucila) that will transport pulp and tea. I have not been able to access precise official information regarding volumes of cargo operated, we will have to wait for the report from Customs or the National Port Authority.

Clearly it seems that this feeder is nothing more than a patch subsidized by the Provincial Government in its desire to promote the port, which takes advantage of the charger as an occasion. What will happen when the National State stops contributing funds for this program? Will the Province be able to face the operating cost of the port alone? A budgetary effort that does not move the ammeter, in terms of new jobs for the missionaries, nor to exports from our country, it is already known that this cargo will be exported through the port of Montevideo – Uruguay.
conclusions

Within this framework, I believe that the National State should not continue financing provincial ports that end up in maneuvers like this or, what is worse, they are used for other functions that have nothing to do with said activity. You have to make decisions and in the short term; The transport of merchandise for consumption in our country is done 88% by truck, 11% by train and 1% by water. Logistics has a high impact on the shelf price of finished products, inflation is difficult to control, produces a monthly increase in fuel that is immediately transferred to prices. Inert logistics system that harms internal trade.

The constant degradation with years of neglect and postponement, generated asymmetries and obsolescence of the infrastructure of the Argentine logistics chain (ports, merchant marine, dredging, naval industry, fluvio-maritime, road, rail and air transport), direct loss of competitiveness of our products in international markets, now we must add the negative effects of the pandemic, war and climate change that destroy crops and harvests. Aged logistics system that harms the international trade of our production.

The logistical chaos contributes to the inflationary spiral, leaks dollars that the Central Bank needs and destroys jobs. Planning and designing a national cargo logistics complementation program, which integrates the 4 modes: road, rail, fluvio-maritime and air that allows strengthening regional economies should be a priority, if this disaster continues we will not be able to generate wealth through more natural resources and human capital than the country has, they will not be enough and we are already experiencing this.

We are on time. (JUAN CARLOS DONATO) #OURMAR

.