Chancay, a town situated 80 km north of Lima that was once a sleepy fishing town, recently became a construction site for the Chancay port. Dumper trucks and cranes are moving pillars, and there is a lot of activity down by the beach.
A potential model for other infrastructure projects in Peru, the town is set to host the Chancay port. It is one of the biggest deep sea ports in Latin America, and its construction and management will be fully overseen by private companies, according to officials.
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Due to the project’s vast scale, maritime traffic from Chile, Ecuador, and Colombia could be spread along South America’s Pacific coast. The port is anticipated to handle one million containers and six million metric tons of loose freight annually in its first phase.
The project’s ownership
The port is 60% controlled by the Chinese state-backed shipping and logistics company Cosco Shipping. The remaining 40% is held by the Peruvian mining company Volcan. According to Cosco, $1.3 billion of the $3.6 billion construction cost has already been committed to the initial phase.
Utilizing Peru’s strategic location as a hub for commerce with Asia, the port also aims to attract South American nations. This was according to Gonzalo Rios Polastri, the deputy general manager of Cosco Shipping Ports Chancay Peru as well as a former admiral. It is anticipated to operate as a development engine for a number of industries.
With its wave breakers, the port, which occupies 280 hectares, required a significant amount of concrete. The entire number of concrete used to build each of these wave breakers could be enough to build twenty 10-story buildings. They plan to safeguard a 1.5-kilometer dock stretch. This stretch is capable of holding some of the largest cargo vessels in the world.
When is the inauguration of the new Chancay port scheduled to take place?
The Chancay port is scheduled to be launched around the end of next year. This also coincides with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit that Peru is hosting. Cosco claims that the port will ultimately expand. According to Rios Polastri, the master plan is to have 15 piers. However, there’s no timeline as they need to see how the port operates in the first few years.
