At Ponta da Madeira the ship is enormous and the stay is short. That combination is the whole
problem for anyone supplying it.
A Valemax or a VLOC on the ore run does not linger. She loads at a rate most ports never see, and
she sails. There is no slack afternoon to catch up an order that arrived incomplete, and no second
delivery window if the first one is missed. A supplier who is not already in São Luís is not going
to fix it from somewhere else.
Our warehouse is in the city, with the cold rooms and the refrigerated fleet in the same building.
That is why a short stay is workable rather than a gamble.
What Ponta da Madeira is
Ponta da Madeira, in São Luís, Maranhão, is the largest iron ore export
terminal in Brazil. In 2024 it loaded 168 million tonnes of iron ore, of
which 110.2 million tonnes went to China, the biggest single volume of any Brazilian
terminal.
It is a private terminal, not the public port. Access, credentialing and the delivery slot follow
the terminal rules, and they are not the same as the ones at Itaqui, a few
kilometres away.
Who calls here, and what that changes
The fleet on this route is dominated by very large ore carriers, many of them Chinese owned,
Chinese chartered or Chinese crewed. COSCO, Shandong Shipping, CMES, China Ore Shipping and ICBC
Financial Leasing together operate more than sixty VLOCs on the Brazil to China run.
That has a practical consequence for the provisions list, and most suppliers ignore it. A Chinese
crew does not want the same galley order as a European one. Rice, noodles, bok choy, Chinese cabbage,
tofu, soy sauce, cooking oil, tea. We carry it, and we would rather you ask than assume it is
unavailable in Brazil.
What we put on board
- Provisions: fresh, frozen and dry stores in our own refrigerated trucks
- Bonded stores: under customs seal, with the documentation the call requires
- Deck and engine stores: ropes, paints, tools, lubricants, chemicals, consumables
- Cabin stores: linen, laundry and cleaning for the accommodation
- Safety and hygiene supplies
- Charts and publications, kept updated
- Spare parts
Ordering for a call at Ponta da Madeira
Send the vessel name and IMO number, the terminal, the ETA and the requisition. A spreadsheet or a
PDF is fine. We quote back by e-mail against that requisition.
Three things move the odds at a terminal this fast:
- Send early. Loading rates here are high, so the margin between arrival and
sailing is thinner than at a public port - Name the agency. Terminal access and the delivery slot go through them
- Flag anything bonded in the first message. Customs paperwork takes longer than
the goods do
We answer 24/7, in Portuguese and English.
The other São Luís terminals
São Luís is one port city with several terminals, each with its own access and its own routine. We
serve all of them: Itaqui, the public multipurpose port; Alumar,
the alumina and aluminium terminal; Ponta da Madeira; and the anchorage.
Tropical Ship Supply is a member of IMPA, the International Marine Purchasing
Association. We write about how calls at Brazilian ports actually run in our
Brazil maritime news and port guides.
Planning a call at Ponta da Madeira? Send the vessel, the IMO number, the ETA and the
requisition to quotation@tropicalshipsupply.com
and we will come back with a quotation.
