Authorities of the maritime sector and the National Waterways Transportation Agency (Antaq) need to be faster with cargo trans-shipment that will be used to support oil and gas exploitation in Brazil. With the increase in offshore operations due to recent discoveries in the pre-salt, it has become increasingly common to import goods like pipes and drilling materials. In some cases these cargoes were stopped for a long time at ports where they arrived, waiting for authorization from Antaq to be transported to ships and platforms that do these operations.

This is because the newly arrived in Brazil materials will not have as final destination an organized port, which would set up a cabotage operation. They are destined for ships at anchor in bays, sites Antaq doesn’t recognize as ports. Importers’ and workers’ concern is with the agility of operations. At the Port of Angra dos Reis, which is strategically located to support the offshore operations in Rio de Janeiro, a large quantity of tubes imported from England was held up last week, hurting all involved.

Given the expected growth of this type of activity in Brazil, it is necessary that the regulatory agency draw up standards to definitively guarantee the effectiveness of this type of trans-shipment.