Container handling more than tripled in the first half of 2024
Next Sunday, September 15, the KBT intermodal logistics project will be three years old since its inauguration. The date brings with it a series of new productivity records for the project, which demonstrate the initiative’s progress, and greater efficiency in the pulp and paper export corridor between Ortigueira and Paranaguá, in the state of Paraná.
Inaugurated in September 2021, the KBT connects the container terminal next to the Ortigueira Unit – a Klabin plant with a production capacity of 2.5 million tons of pulp and paper per year – to the Paranaguá Container Terminal via a railroad operated by Brado Logística.
In 2024, KBT enters its third year with the best productivity in its history: in the first half of the year, 43,245 containers were handled, 201% more than the 14,362 recorded in the same period in 2022.
Shipments by KBT also increased by 67% for the first half of the year, from 17,988 TEUs (equivalent to a 20-foot container) in 2022 to 30,078 TEUs in 2024.
Fabio Henrique Mattos, TCP’s logistics operations manager, points out that “the consecutive productivity records recorded at the container terminal operations in Ortigueira and at the Paranaguá Container Terminal, both managed by TCP, demonstrate the efficiency gains and the maturity of the Project, which have resulted in a constant increase in its share of the Terminal’s rail operations”.
Another fact that reinforces the Project’s progress is the growth in the number of berths, the process of loading and unloading trains: there were 140 in the first half of 2024, while in 2022 there were 100. TCP is currently the only port terminal in southern Brazil to have a direct connection from the railroad to the bonded area within its operations yard.
According to Giovanni Guidolim, TCP’s commercial, logistics and service manager, “the increase in KBT’s indicators reinforces the success of the project, a joint achievement thanks to the alignment of the three companies in continuing to invest continuously and always focusing on long-term results. That’s why, today, the KBT Project has become a benchmark in national logistics in the Tailor Made concept and in modal diversification for greater transportation capacity for a single client.”
Sustainability
The installation and operation of the KBT project also brought significant improvements in terms of sustainability in the pulp and paper export corridor, which connects Ortigueira to Paranaguá, as explained by Bianca Kulakowski, product manager at Brado Logística: “in the first half of 2022, transporting cargo via the KBT on the railroad prevented the emission of 8,900 tons of CO₂. With the growth in movement, in 2024 the emissions avoided reached 12,400 tons, equivalent to the annual emission of 2,600 vehicles. 88,000 trees would be needed to fully absorb this volume.”
In the first half of 2024, KBT carried out an average of 23 rail trains per month, each consisting of 82 container wagons. As a result, KBT’s operation also avoided the traffic of approximately 1,000 trucks with rodotrem wagons – which carry 2 containers per trip – on the stretch between Ortigueira and Paranaguá, which represents a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as stress on Paraná’s highways.
In line with this, Mattos argues that “operating by rail offers lower risks of breakdowns and greater assertiveness in transit time, and is in line with TCP’s initiatives to reduce the emission of polluting gases, since the loading and unloading of containers on trains is carried out using electrified RTGs (rubber-tyred gantry cranes) at the Paranaguá Container Terminal”.
In 2023, TCP will complete the electrification of the two RTGs responsible for moving containers on the railroad. The conversion of the equipment resulted in a 97% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in the operation of each crane.
