Maersk: How we’re MAXimising trade in Brazil

In Brazil, our 16 SAMMAX vessels show how a tailor made container vessel can help a country make the most of its trade opportunities.

In Brazil, shallow water ports and lack of sufficient container terminals have prevented large container ships from calling the ports. Instead, ports were clogged with smaller vessels spending too much time getting in and out and carrying too little cargo.

Inefficiencies like that have knock-on effects: the longer a vessel spends in port, the greater the transport costs and the higher the CO2 emissions. This has a detrimental impact on trade in the region, affecting the ability of local businesses and their dependants to prosper and grow.

Why ship size matters for Brazil

Maersk Line’s 8,600 TEU vessels – the SAMMAX (South America Max) – carry more than twice as much cargo as the previous Maersk ships deployed on the route between South America and Europe. What makes the SAMMAX ship different is not just its size it’s the fact that it’s been designed to overcome the limitations of shallow water ports and constrained port capacity in Brazil.

This means that every time a SAMMAX vessel calls a Brazilian port, it delivers more containers, and it delivers them faster. This helps speed up port productivity. In the port of Santos alone, the ship design makes SAMMAX vessels able to offer the community an increased trade potential worth up to USD 1.4 billion every year.

SAMMAX by the numbers

+72% containers per vessel call – 8,600 containers (TEU) in total (compared to the previous 3,200 TEU Maersk vessels on the same route)

10% higher fuel efficiency compared to other new vessels of the same size and vintage
Source: Maersk