Puerto Bolivar Coal Terminal

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The Puerto Bolivar coal export terminal is a private terminal in La Guajira department on Colombia's Caribbean coast, owned by the Cerrejon Coal Company (Carbones del Cerrejón), which in turn is owned by the Glencore Group. The terminal exports coal from the Cerrejon coal mine in northern Colombia, the largest coal mine in Latin America.

The Puerto Bolivar terminal, which has utilized covered conveyor belts and a direct-loading system since 1985, added a new pier and dual shiploader in 2014, bringing its annual export capacity up to 40 million tonnes.

Location

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Project Details

• Operator: Cerrejón Zona Norte S.A. (Carbones del Cerrejón Limited)
• Annual Capacity (Tonnes): 40 million to 42 million tpa (tonnes per annum)
• Status: Operating
• Start date: 1985
• Type: Exports
• Coal Source: Cerrejon coal mine

Background

Puerto Bolivar is the second largest coal port in Colombia, and in Latin America as a whole, both in terms of export capacity and annual export volume. The Puerto Bolívar terminal is part of an integrated infrastructure system designed to handle all coal exported from Colombia's Cerrejón mine, the largest coal mine in Latin America. Coal is transported from the mine to Puerto Bolivar via a 150km private, standard-gauge railway. Two 120-car trains make an average of four daily runs between the mine and the port, transporting 48,000 metric tons of crushed coal per day. Upon arrival at Puerto Bolivar, coal gets loaded onto stockpiles or moved to the 10,000 ton-per-hour shiploaders at the port's loading pier, which can handle vessels up to 150,000 dwt (dead weight tonnage). The port receives 15 to 20 ships per month and has 610,000 tonnes of storage capacity.

Puerto Bolívar received its first 8500-tonne coal shipment from the Cerrejón mine by train in 1984, and implemented its direct conveyor belt coal-loading system in 1985.

In 2013, Coal Age magazine reported that "The coal port is located on the western shore near the entrance to Bahia Portete (Portete Bay). It can receive ships of up to 984-ft long and 147-ft beam, and can load to a maximum draft of 55 ft and maximum air draft of 69 ft. It can handle Capesize vessels. Port operator and miner Carbones del Cerrejon has taken steps to increase annual production tonnage, and to increase port capacity to handle the additional tonnage. In May 2012, Cerrejon contracted with Ferrovial of Spain and Sainc of Colombia to build a second, $39.2 million terminal, enabling the company to increase annual export tonnage from 32 million to 40 million tonnes. The entire project, including mine expansion, was expected to cost $1.31 billion.

In September 2014, Cerrejon Coal Company announced completion of its P40 expansion project for Puerto Bolivar, which increased the port's capacity from 32 to 40 million tons per annum with the deployment of a new pier and a state-of-the-art dual shiploader. Puerto Bolivar loaded its first coal shipment of 20,000 tons using the new equipment in late August 2014, and the revamped facilities were officially inaugurated in late December 2014 by Colombia's president Juan Manuel Santos Calderón.

Capacity

In 2014, upon completion of the P40 expansion project, the Cerrejón company identified the port's upgraded capacity as "above 40 million tonnes a year" (40 Mtpa). An August 2022 report from Colombia's national mining agency listed the port's coal-handling capacity as 32 to 42 Mtpa. The integrated Cerrejón mine-to-port project is authorized by the Colombian government to handle up to 41 million tonnes of coal per year.

Coal throughput statistics

Despite completion of the 8 mtpa expansion in late 2014, exports from the Cerrejon thermal coal mine in Colombia fell in 2015: the company exported 33.4 million tonnes in 2015, 2 per cent less than in 2014.

In 2016, exports fell further, to 32.07 million tonnes. Additional declines were recorded in subsequent years:

• 2017 31,640,648 tonnes
• 2018 30,448,878 tonnes
• 2019 26,232,094 tonnes
• 2020 11,309,643 tonnes
• 2021 22,671,411 tonnes
• 2022 16,967,233 tonnes
• 2023 20,644,458 tonnes
• 2024 20,256,766 tonnes
• 2025 16,656,811 tonnes

Export destinations

In 2012 nearly half of all coal exported from Puerto Bolivar went to EU-27 countries, with nearly a quarter going to Turkey, and the rest to the U.S. and to Central and South America. As of 2013, roughly half of the coal passing through Puerto Bolivar was exported to Europe, with another 25% destined for the Americas. In 2019, Newcastlemax's Netherlands-bound Lydia Oldendorff set the record for largest vessel to load coal at Puerto Bolivar.

Expansion costs and financing

BHP Billiton, Glencore and Anglo American agreed to chip in US$437 million each to expand the Cerrejon coal mine and add the extra loading berth in 2014 at the Puerto Bolivar port. In March 2015, Cerrejón Coal Company CEO Roberto Junguito told Bloomberg News that the joint venture might export only about 34 million tons of coal in 2015, due to declining coal prices and demand.

Conflicts and disruptions

In February/March 2013, a 32-day strike at the Cerrejón mine significantly disrupted coal shipments from Puerto Bolivar, resulting in 10 canceled shipments totaling 900,000 tons within the first week and an estimated loss of 3 million tons in output during the course of the strike.

Pollution from operations at the Puerto Bolivar terminal has regularly been a concern for local communities. In August 2016, the regional government authority Corpoguajira ordered a temporary suspension of operations at Puerto Bolivar pending cleanup of coal dust contamination affecting the indigenous communities of Malla Norte, Media Luna and Lechemana. In March 2017, Colombia's Constitutional Court upheld an injunction filed by the community of Media Luna Dos calling for a re-examination of Puerto Bolivar's environmental management plan. The court's ruling ordered Colombia's Ministry of the Interior, the environmental regulatory authority ANLA, and the Cerrejón Coal Company to analyze the coal terminal's health impacts on surrounding communities and, if necessary, modify, suspend or cancel Puerto Bolivar's environmental license.

Labor issues have also continued to affect the Puerto Bolivar terminal. In 2016, workers threatened to strike but ultimately backed down, citing unfavorably low coal prices that weakened their bargaining position. In January 2018, following a fatal landslide that killed a Puerto Bolivar employee, workers again threatened to strike if their demands for higher pay and safer working conditions weren't met, noting that 2017 and 2018 coal prices were substantially higher than the 2016 prices in effect at the time the previous contract was negotiated.

During 2021, Puerto Bolivar was contending with shutdowns due to railway blockades of the route connecting the port to the coal mine.

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