Brazil Port of Rio Grande to Complete Dredging in August

Maintenance dredging at the Brazilian Port of Rio Grande, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, should be completed by August, officials estimated. As of late July, the dredging project was 88 percent complete, the local state-owned port administrator, the Superintendence of the Port of Rio Grande (SUPRG), said. Last year, SUPRG provisionally suspended maintenance dredging at the port’s access channel following a recommendation of public prosecutors at Brazil’s Ministério Público Federal (MPF). It was due to sediment along the port’s access channel and wharf. Then, a few days later, the Brazilian Secretariat of Ports, which is part of the Ministry of Transports, Ports and Civil Aviation (MTPA) ordered maintenance dredging to resume. As a result of the government’s decision, a consortium made up of Jan de Nul and DEME Group’s Brazilian subsidiary, Dragabras, was allowed in mid-December to resume maintenance dredging at the Port of Rio Grande. “The dredging project stopped and for this reason, we will include a contract additive,” said Fernando Estima, superintendent at SUPRG. A consortium made up of Jan de Nul and DEME Group’s Brazilian subsidiary, Dragabras, was allowed in mid-December 2018 to resume maintenance dredging at the Port of Rio Grande. Maintenance dredging was first expected to be completed by June this year, in a two-month timeline.