New concessions promise to accelerate the outflow of the Midwest crop

The new package of highway concessions announced by President Dilma Rousseff not only served to signal to the private sector that the government will continue to bet its chips on a strategy that has paid off. The selection of new roads, which are expected to go up for auction later this year, also managed to meet the main demands of the largest grain production center in the country.

Of the five announced stretches, three are directly associated with the flow of grain from the Midwest: BR-163 between Sinop (MT) and the Port of Miritituba (PA) and two stretches of the BR-364 – between Rondonópolis (MT) and Goiânia and between Jataí (GO) and the Triângulo Mineiro.

The importance of these stretches for the logistics of agricultural production in the country and the consequent need to duplicate these roads appear in a survey that has just been carried out by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI).

The data, obtained exclusively by Valor, point out that, just with the paving and duplication of the 976 km of the BR-163 that connect Sinop and the future port of Miritituba, the economy with transport can reach R$ 2,2 billion per year starting in 2020. With the auction for this route – which is added to two other concessions held last year on two stretches of the BR-163 -, the government consolidates the creation of a road corridor towards the ports in the North region of the country, alleviating the need for pressure that blocks the ports of Santos (SP) and Paranaguá (PR) every year.

The same urgent need for work takes over the BR-364. Today, the 213 km route that connects Rondonópolis and Alto Araguaia, in Mato Grosso, is the second most congested in the entire Midwest, according to CNI. The daily traffic capacity on the highway is 38,9 thousand tons, but in peak months the volume reaches 78,9 thousand tons, that is, the highway has been operating at 202% of its capacity. The situation only gets worse on the link between Lucas do Rio Verde and Posto Gil, a stretch of BR-163 in Mato Grosso that has already been granted and which, despite also supporting 38,9 thousand tons of cargo per day, has received a total of 83 thousand tons per day.

Finally, the duplication of the BR-364, between Jataí and its connection with the BR-153, near Uberlândia, also promises to improve the conditions of ruralistas living in the south of Goiás, a region that is among the largest corn producers in the country.

“What we elaborated is a conception of making the great national structuring axes for the distribution of our harvest”, said the Minister of Transport, César Borges.

In addition to these three stretches, the government announced the concession of a lot of 493 km, which includes BRs 476, 153, 282 and 480, starting from Lapa (PR) until arriving in Chapecó (SC), on the border of Santa Catarina with Rio Grande do Sul.

As with the highway concessions granted by the government, these new operations will have a 30-year term, with a forecast of being fully duplicated within the first five years of the contract.

The only concession with a forecast of 20 years of operation by the private sector is the Rio-Niterói Bridge, which is already managed by CCR, the concessionaire that took over the bridge during the first stage of concessions carried out by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), in the 1990s. The government says that CCR will remain in charge of the contract until it expires in May 2015, when it will assume a new entrepreneur.

The expectation, according to the Minister of Transport, César Borges, is that the auctions for the new stretches will take place in the second half of this year. It's a tight deadline. Until Monday, an order must be published in the “Official Gazette of the Union”, for hiring the companies that will carry out the technical and financial feasibility studies of each highway.

The Brazilian Project Structurer (EBP) will not have any exclusivity in the elaboration of these studies. EBP, a company that belongs to the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) and eight commercial banks, carried out all the concession studies carried out so far. “This new set of highways will be built, first, based on projects, based on the expression of interest program that the government will develop together with the private sector. With that, we want to improve the quality of the projects”, said President Dilma Rousseff, during the announcement of the new concessions, in a meeting on Friday at the Planalto Palace.

The deadline for manifestation of companies interested in carrying out the studies is ten days. Based on these surveys, the government must prepare a draft public notice, which must be forwarded to the Federal Audit Court. Only after obtaining approval from the TCU and holding public hearings will each section be ready for the auction to be announced.

Source: Valor Econômico/André Borges and Bruno Peres | From Brasilia