Santos fertilizer berthing pressure persists as official schedules show extended arrivals

Recent official vessel schedules at the Port of Santos indicate continued pressure on fertilizer berthing capacity, reinforcing a market report published on 19 October that described waiting times of about 30 days at key terminals.

S&P Global reported that market participants were seeing roughly 30-day delays for fertilizer vessels at Santos and cited one ammonium-sulphate cargo from China that had spent 24 days between arrival at anchorage and its scheduled berth at Termag. The report said the timing was commercially sensitive because nitrogen deliveries were already considered late for the Brazilian agricultural calendar.

The port authority’s live programmed-berthing page provides direct operational evidence consistent with that account, although it does not state the reason for each delay. In the 31 October schedule, several fertilizer vessels had arrival dates materially earlier than their programmed berthing windows. Examples included Genco Hunter, shown with an ETA of 4 October and a programmed berthing slot on 31 October; Drawsko and Eternity Diva, each shown with 28 October arrival information and scheduled for 31 October; and Oshima Japan, also shown with a 28 October arrival entry and a 31 October berthing slot. The same schedule included Angelina The Great N as a fertilizer vessel in a re-berthing entry, with an ETA recorded as 9 September.

These entries are not a complete queue analysis: programmed times can change, ETA fields may not prove continuous anchorage, and the public schedule does not identify cargo ownership, terminal constraints, documentation issues, weather effects or whether a vessel has been temporarily shifted. Nevertheless, the alignment between the official operational data and the earlier trade report supports the conclusion that berth sequencing for fertilizer cargoes remained strained at the end of October.

Why this matters: Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture says imports account for 93% of domestic fertilizer consumption and identifies Paranaguá, Santos and the Arco Norte as principal entry channels. In August, Conaportos and the Ministry of Ports and Airports issued Resolution No. 3 recommending preferential discharge treatment for imported mineral fertilizers and related plant-nutrition inputs for the 2026/27 crop season, for six months. That policy context does not guarantee a berth or override terminal, nautical, contractual or safety controls.

Analysis: For charterers, cargo interests, operators and claims teams, the current Santos schedules warrant voyage-by-voyage review of laytime exposure, notice-of-readiness wording, terminal nomination, cargo readiness and discharge-window assumptions. They should not be read as a navigational clearance, a prediction of any individual vessel’s turnaround, or evidence of fault by a port, terminal or vessel.