GRUPO ETE enabled the largest Portuguese clinker export ever, to its client Cimpor - an InterCement company – by concluding the loading of 55,902 metric tons on the bulk carrier Vinayak, bound for Ghana.
This export operation, completed in a record time, was entirely carried out on the Tagus river. The clinker was transported in barges pushed by tugboats down the river, from Cimpor’s Alhandra plant terminal, and loaded by floating cranes into the M/V Vinayak anchored midstream in the port of Lisbon. In total, two floating cranes, three tugboats and 23 barge voyages were used in this operation.
In Portugal, GRUPO ETE, the only company doing inland waterways transport and performing midstream at anchor loading and unloading operations, handles more than 25 clinker vessels per year exceeding the one million metric ton mark.
Exceptional natural conditions of the Port of Lisbon associated with the navigability of the Tagus river allow sustainable and environmentally friendly operations.
The Port of Lisbon natural conditions, which allow large vessels like the M/V Vinayak, and its location in the Tagus estuary - one of the few Portuguese rivers allowing inland cargo transportation - offers all industries settled along the river up to 60 km from the Tagus mouth the opportunity to benefit from the competitive and environmental inland waterways transport mode.
This sole clinker operation took out of the road 2,300 trucks and avoided 54 tons in carbon dioxide emissions, when compared to road mode. All Cimpor’s clinker exports are carried out by inland waterways, using the midstream cargo operation in the Port of Lisbon, thus offering important environmental advantages.
According to Pedro Marques, board member of CIMPOR TRADING e INVERSIONES, S.A, "Clinker export, because it’s a commodity, is only feasible if we are highly competitive, flexible and responsive. GRUPO ETE, our strategic partner for more than 40 years, offers us a key-in-hand river transport and handling solution that brings this process the needed additional competitiveness and efficiency.”
Luís Figueiredo, GRUPO ETE shareholder and board member, said, "Challenging clients like Cimpor make us settle transport solutions that add additional competiveness to these operations, and using the Tagus River is key to this process. Thus, fostering inland navigation will contribute to boost the Port of Lisbon development and potentiate the geostrategic value it offers to the Portuguese economy and export companies.”
