The current port of San Antonio, on the central coast of Chile, on a day of full activity with its cranes deployed and loading two container ships with products for export. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SAN ANTONIO, Chile, Sep 30 2025 (IPS)

The port of San Antonio, Chile’s main port, is promoting a historic and sustainable expansion with its own investment and that of international consortiums, aiming to improve its current ninth place among the largest and busiest ports in Latin America.

The port, located in the Valparaíso region, 110 kilometers north of Santiago and in the municipality of the same name, San Antonio, is state-owned and currently operates with five concessions granted to private operators, receiving container ships carrying millions of products.

In 2024, it handled 23 million tons of import and export goods worth US$42.766 billion. It received 1,024 ships and 1.8 million TEUs, the unit of cargo in maritime transport equivalent to the capacity of a standard 20-foot container.“The most important thing is for the project to be inaugurated when demand requires it. We trust that, regardless of the government that comes in from next March, this project will follow the desired schedule. We are working as quickly as possible”–Juan Carlos Muñoz

For several years now, San Antonio’s cargo movement has tripled that of the historic port of Valparaiso, located 100 kilometers to the north, and serves an area stretching from the regions of Coquimbo, north of Valparaiso, to Maule, south of the Santiago metropolitan region.

This is a strip of land where 63% of Chile’s 19.7 million people live and where 59% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of this long South American country, which narrows between the Andes mountain range and the Pacific Ocean, is produced.

Chile has free trade agreements with 34 countries or trading blocs, representing 88% of global GDP. In 2024, its exports reached a record US$100.163 billion, and imports amounted to US$84.155 billion.

The San Antonio Outer Port project, which represents a major expansion of the current port, is key to strengthening international openness and solidifying connections with the main routes to and from Asia, the Americas, and Europe.

Copper, fruits, wine, salmon, fruit pulp, and other products are shipped out through San Antonio, while grains, vehicles, machinery, technological equipment, and chemicals are brought in.

“When you project Chile’s cargo movement, especially in the central macro-zone, you realize that by the years 2035-2036, the installed capacity in San Antonio and Valparaiso will be exceeded. Therefore, we must work on a port expansion because otherwise, we will have significant congestion of trucks and ships,” explained the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Juan Carlos Muñoz, to IPS.

Such congestion, he added, “is an inefficiency we cannot afford because it would significantly affect the country’s competitiveness.”

The Outer Port is a strategic and emblematic project for Chile’s development, according to Muñoz.

The major expansion includes two new semi-automated terminals, 1,730 meters long and 450 meters wide, with eight berthing fronts.

By 2036, when the expansion is fully operational, eight state-of-the-art 400-meter-long container ships will be able to dock simultaneously, and move six million containers annually. This capacity will double the current one.

San Antonio was chosen as the most suitable location for this unprecedented port expansion.

Currently, the project is progressing through environmental approval and a bidding process for the breakwater, along with updates to the infrastructure for protecting its docks from winds and waves—a fundamental aspect for the installation of concessionaires for the next 30 years.

Regarding the potential impact of the November presidential elections, Muñoz reminded IPS that “in this project, we are taking the baton from those who came before. And we plan to hand it over improved and advanced to those who come next, regardless of political color.”

“The most important thing is for the project to be inaugurated when demand requires it. We trust that, regardless of the government that comes, this project will follow the desired schedule. We are working as quickly as possible,” he explained.

Map showing the projected location of the Outer Port of the port of San Antonio, the main port in Chile, on the central coast of the Pacific Ocean. The expansion will almost triple its current capacity and will be fully operational in 2036. Credit: Courtesy of the San Antonio port

Key Definitions

The Exterior Port includes the construction of an L-shaped breakwater nearly four kilometers long. Two kilometers will extend out to sea, and the other two will follow the coastline.

The total investment will be US$4.45 billion, of which $1.95 billion will be contributed by the state-owned San Antonio Port Company and US$2.5 billion by the private sector.

The transfer capacity will be expanded to six million TEUs per year.

In March, the project obtained a US$150 million credit from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, CAF, to finance enabling works such as the construction of the breakwater and to implement environmental compensation measures.

On Wednesday, September 24, Eduardo Abedrapo, president of the San Antonio port, confirmed during a visit to the port facilities by international journalists, including IPS, that two other consortia were prequalified, raising the number of bids for the initial works to five.

The tender process will close the receipt of bids in January 2026 and will award the contracts two months later.

The first contracts are for building the breakwater, carrying out the dredging, and related works.

The preliminary works are new access roads and a railway station to transport project construction material. Next comes the construction of the seawall and the deep dredging (18.5 meters) of the harbor basin.

The breakwater will be 1,230 meters facing the sea and 2,700 meters extending inland and requires 16 million cubic meters of rock.

The companies prequalified so far are Van Oord (Netherlands), Jan de Nul (Belgium), China Harbour Engineering Company CHEC (China), Acciona-Deme (Spain-Belgium), and Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd. (South Korea).

The container ship Valentina, 366 meters long, docked at pier 1 of the Chilean port of San Antonio in the middle of loading operations. Less than 10 minutes pass from when the truck arrives alongside the ship until it leaves the port having delivered the container. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Environmental Sustainability

The project aims to ensure port operational quality through execution that is sustainable with the social and environmental surroundings.

“Chile has a very sophisticated and complex environmental assessment system. Obviously, these works have a set of impacts in their construction and operation phases,” Abedrapo told IPS.

He emphasized that “the port will be 100% electric. From the point of view of particulate matter pollution, it will be the opposite, as it will strongly contribute to decarbonization.”

However, he admitted that a port emits noise and has other impacts on the marine ecosystem or life in the surrounding areas.

He explained that as a result of meetings with the San Antonio municipality and social and environmental organizations, it was decided to protect two water bodies located in the new port facility by declaring them urban wetlands. They had emerged naturally 50 years after the original port was established in 1912.

“This is a demonstration of the company’s commitment to safeguarding biodiversity in the area and coastal land. It means that major infrastructure developments can be perfectly compatible and harmonized with the safeguarding and improvement of environmental conditions,” he asserted.

The removal of 16 million rocks to build the breakwater, for example, includes their reuse. Part of the environmental efficiency involves using the removed material to fill in other platforms.

Trucks move among dozens of already unloaded containers that are waiting for customs procedures before being sent to their destination. In 2024, 23 million tons of products passed through the Chilean port of San Antonio. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Progress of the Major Expansion

The environmental qualification resolution for the Outer Port is still being processed, awaiting technical reports from the involved public services and the conclusion of a citizen consultation.

Abedrapo believes that in October 2025 the environmental assessment service will issue a report that must be responded to by those responsible for the San Antonio port.

“The environmental assessment service could, towards the first half of next year, make a decision regarding the environmental qualification resolution for the project,” he estimated.

Abedrapo maintains that the Outer Port will ensure the sustainability and modernization of Chile’s public port infrastructure with high levels of efficiency and modern equipment.

He highlights direct benefits for Chilean foreign trade, lower-cost imported goods, and a competitive logistics chain.

Meanwhile, in the operation of the current port, the improvement of the breakwater, built last century, has been completed with the placement of 5,100 cubic meters of concrete and 3,400 cubic meters of prefabricated blocks. The parapet wall was raised from 10.6 to 11 meters.

Ten million dollars were invested to increase the safety of port operations relating the effects of climate change.

The work, which began last May, also included the installation of 2,300 cubic meters of large-tonnage rockfill.

The Chancay Port in Peru

Minister Muñoz dismissed any concerns about potential competition with the port of Chancay in Peru, funded by China in Chile’s northern neighbor and located near Lima.

“Rather than generating competition between different ports and countries, there is instead complementarity. It is good for us that Peru has ports of this level because there are ships that visit several ports to make a route along a certain coastline attractive,” he claimed.

He insisted that the demand projections in Chile require investing in a large-scale port that anticipates them.

He added that Chile can also attract cargo from other South American nations through the proposed bioceanic corridors.

“The existence of other ports of similar scale in other countries on the Pacific coast means that shipping lines visiting this part of the world can have more than one port of call. Ports like those being developed by our brother country Peru are an attractive complement to the project we are carrying out here, in San Antonio,” he concluded.

The port of Manzanillo, with the largest cargo movement in Mexico, is expanding its facilities without an environmental impact study. Credit: Colima Sostenible

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO, Dec 19 2024 (IPS)

The expansion of the port of Manzanillo, Mexico’s most important port in terms of cargo movement and located on the central Pacific coast, has major environmental impacts, as well as presenting climatic risks.

Work began on 23 November without the required environmental impact study, and includes the extension of the port, the construction of a gasoline storage terminal and a gas and steam power plant in the western state of Colima.“There is significant social damage that has never been resolved. For example, they dredged the lagoon to install the gas plant. When there is dredging, marine sediments are moved, more pollution is caused and when they mix, new pollutants are caused. The damage is irremediable”: Hugo Smith.

For independent expert Hugo Smith, the impact is “tremendous”, as the area hosts significant economic activity, such as agriculture, livestock, salt flats and artisanal fisheries.

“There is significant social damage that has never been resolved. For example, they dredged the lagoon to install the gas plant. When there is dredging, marine sediments are moved, more pollution is caused and when they mix, new pollutants are caused. The damage is irremediable”, he told IPS from the port city of Tampico, in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.

The specialist stressed the lack of adequate planning, because “in other places they ask for climate forecasts, in this case there has to be very well-planned works, they have to be monitored. There is talk of sustainability as a political slogan, but there are no indicators.”

The expansion includes a storage and distribution facility of the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) with a capacity for 3.7 million barrels of fuel, another maritime terminal with a capacity to move five million containers, and roadways.

The port site currently covers 437 hectares, housing 19 docks and warehouses.

With the work, due to be completed in 2030, the port area will be extended to 1,800 hectares in the second basin of the Cuyutlán lagoon. There are four regulating basins which capture the rain and separate the lagoon by roads and sluice gates.

With a public-private investment of US$3,480 million, the Mexican government is seeking to turn the port of the coastal city of Manzanillo into the largest in Latin America and the 15th largest globally, by doubling its total capacity.

The expansion is part of a scheme to modernise 10 Mexican federal ports.

The area of Manzanillo, a city in the western Mexican state of Colima, will be impacted in the long term by sea level rise, including the port area that is being expanded and is on the left side of the map depicted. Credit: Climate Central

Important habitat

President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office on 1 October, has maintained the plans of her predecessor and political mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), to revive old projects. The expansion of Manzanillo dates back to the Felipe Calderón administration (2006-2012) and López Obrador formally took it up again in 2019, but without advancing its development.

The city of Manzanillo, with 159,000 people and more than 800 kilometres west of Mexico City, is surrounded by the lagoons of Valle de las Garzas and Cuyutlán, which are vital to the area’s environment because of the animal and plant species they shelter.

The governmental National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Conabio) lists as ecosystem values the presence of salt cultivation, artisanal fishing, mangroves, native and migratory birds, as well as crocodiles and turtles, in the 7,200-hectare Cuyutlán lagoon, located parallel to the Pacific coast.

The ecosystem holds 90% of the wetlands in the state of Colima and is registered by Conabio as a priority marine and hydrological region.

In fact, in the last decade the agency warned that the port expansion could “potentially increase water levels and alter important habitats for nesting and feeding of organisms such as birds.”

The works will require, it said, “the opening of new channels of communication with the sea, as well as deeper navigation channels, which could provoke more severe changes in water levels and circulation.”

Hence the importance of the environmental impact assessment, in order to know the repercussions and the mitigation measures envisaged.

In 2017, then president Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) issued a call for an environmental assessment, but it is ignored if it was carried out. In any case, the works were never undertaken.

Panoramic view of the Cuyutlán Lagoon, which has four basins. The expansion of the port of Manzanillo began in basin 2, with serious environmental impacts. Basins 3 and 4 are considered wetlands of international importance for their natural diversity. Credit: Conabio / Semar

Two lagoons in danger

The lagoon consists of four lagoon basins, the last two of which are adjacent to the area of the expansion.

These are sites of international importance since 2011 under the Convention on Wetlands, as they support vulnerable endangered species and threatened ecological communities; populations of plant and animal species important for maintaining the biological diversity of the region.

It is also home to some 20,000 waterfowl and migratory birds, as well as providing food for fish and a nesting ground for turtles.

To the north of the port is the 268-hectare Valle de las Garzas lagoon, which suffers from high levels of sediment due to soil loss from the watershed and urban activities, and has high levels of nutrients due to discharges from nearby treatment plants and human activities. It is therefore in worse condition than the Cuyutlán lagoon.

Despite its condition, the local environmental authorities have not yet declared it a protected area. Meanwhile, the fourth basin of the Cuyutlán lagoon is about to receive this status, although it does not seem that this protection will impede the already initiated port expansion project.

The area also faces climate threats. Between 2030 and 2050, the coastal areas around Manzanillo and inside the Cuyutlán lagoon will be flooded by rising sea levels, according to forecasts by the international scientific platform Climate Central.

In addition, the port area is exposed to increased flooding from rainfall, according to climate studies by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Dead mangroves on the shore of the Cuyutlán lagoon, the most important wetland in Mexico’s western Pacific. Credit: Conabio / Semar

Inconsistency

Since 2023, the Ministry of the Navy, which manages the federal ports, has been implementing the Port Decarbonisation Strategy, which aims to reduce emissions in operations.

In what is the second-largest economy of Latin America, 227.75 million tonnes were handled between January and October in the 103 ports of the National Port System (SPN). A figure 7.5% lower than that of the same period in 2023.

Manzanillo handled 30.77 million tonnes – almost 1% less than in the same period of 2023 – up to last November.

In 2022, the 36 ports of the 18 SPN administrations emitted 1.33 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, almost double the level of 2021, according to the national strategy. Carbon equivalent measures pollution in reference to CO2. Manzanillo released 30% more emissions into the atmosphere than in 2022.

Measurements involve the activity of cargo ships, vessels parked in port, cargo handling equipment, locomotives and cargo trucks, as well as the operation of terminals, operators, service providers, shipping lines, shipping agents, customs, land transport and rail companies.

The Decarbonisation Strategy stipulates emission reductions of 25 % by 2030 and 45 % by 2050, but only sets out general measures, such as planning resilient infrastructure, harmonising management and planning instruments, such as concession titles, master development programmes and operating rules.

It also sets out how to identify, describe and programme the implementation of low-emission energy policies.

Port sustainability includes the consideration of environmental, economic and social aspects, such as pollution, dredging of nearby areas, return on investment and job creation.

But the installation of more hydrocarbon terminals, fuel storage facilities and a gas-fired power plant contradict the strategy’s goals. Official publicity presents it as sustainable because of its gas consumption, despite the fact that it is a highly polluting fossil fuel.

Moreover, the 2021-2026 master programme for port development does not address environmental considerations.

As is the case in the rest of Latin America, no Mexican port appears on the project map of the World Ports Sustainability Programme, an association that brings together the world’s largest environmentally friendly facilities.

Expert Smith pointed to a greater focus on ship operations to improve port sustainability.

“Ships are increasingly environmentally constrained. Ports do not provide renewable energy. Decarbonisation must focus on ships and the biggest polluters are container ships,” he said.

In the decade following the break-up of Yugoslavia, it was rare for a statement made by a foreign politician to stir heated debate in the Eastern European bloc.

Since 2001, the independent nations of former Yugoslavia have been focused on rebuilding their economies from the rubble of simultaneous and protracted conflicts throughout the region and geopolitics have largely been confined to the slow process of reconciliation among neighbouring states.

But the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proclamation last week that Bosnia-Herzegovina is now in the “care” of his country generated much public controversy in the Balkan states of Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

“Bosnia and Herzegovina is entrusted to us,” Erdogan told a meeting of the provincial heads of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara last week.

He recalled a statement made by the former Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first president, when Erdogan visited him on his deathbed in 2003. “He (Izetbegovic) whispered in my ear these phrases: ‘Bosnia (and Herzegovina) is entrusted to you (Turkey). These places are what remain of the Ottoman Empire’,” he said.

Izetbegovic, who led Bosnia into the war of independence in 1992 and subsequently became the country’s first president, died of a heart disease in 2003.

The thought of being passed off as a ‘trust’ to any country is enough to spark intense opposition but the statement is made worse by the fact that Bosnia is home to a highly diverse population comprising various ethno-religious communities including Bosniak Muslims, Catholic Bosnian Croats and Orthodox Serbs as well.

The latter two groups make up more than half of Bosnia’s population of four million. For them, the 500 years of Turkish-Ottoman rule that ended only with the collapse of the empire at the end of World War I are remembered almost exclusively as a period of severe oppression.

Bosnian Serb politicians were quick to voice their anger over the statement.

“Bosnia-Herzegovina is not a land to be inherited,” Igor Radojicic, a spokesman for the Bosnian Serb Parliament stressed, while Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Covic told local media he doubted that “Izetbegovic could be so powerful as to believe he has a country to give (away) as a trust.”

The controversy quickly went viral online, with websites in the region becoming the battlegrounds for a war of words between various ethnic groups.

United against Muslims, non-Muslims expressed outrage against the statement and open fear about the influence of Islam in the region.

“People who are not of Islamic faith tend to be surprised when they see many women in Sarajevo dressed in traditional Islamic ways, with scarves or even in abayas, as Bosnia was a secular country before the wars of the ‘90s,” Zijad Jusufovic (47), a tour guide in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, told IPS.

“But there are also others signs that are not yet visible (to a majority of the population) – for instance unemployed men get financial support if they become regular mosque goers, war widows get financial support as well – up to 600 dollars – if they and their children become devout Muslims.

“That began in the 90s, as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Malaysia (began) to support Muslims here,” he added.

Pragmatic foreign policy

Belgrade historian Slavenko Terzic told the leading Serbian daily ‘Politika’ that Erdogan’s proclamation was “a dangerous statement for the Balkans”.

His colleague, Cedomir Antic, described the move as “an unprecedented provocation” that should be “officially renounced by Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia”.

But for analysts and experts, the statement by the Turkish Prime Minister came as no surprise.

“The statement represents a political reality: that (Turkey) considers the Balkans a priority in its ambitious foreign policy,” Darko Tanaskovic, an expert in oriental studies at the University of Belgrade, told IPS.

For Voja Lalic, a veteran journalist who dedicated his career to Turkey, Erdogan’s statement was “neither accidental, nor unexpected”.

“The (AKP) government is trying to impose itself as a regional power in areas of the former Ottoman Empire, not only in the Balkans, but in the Middle East and former Soviet republics of Islamic background as well,” Lalic told IPS.

“Perhaps the statement about ‘legacy’ was a little counterproductive for Turkey’s long-term interests,” Tanaskovic told IPS, especially since it raised fears in Bosnia about Ankara’s expansionist mindset.

He added, however, that Turkey’s foreign policy is distinguished by a high degree of pragmatism, referred to by historians and analysts as ‘Neo-Osmanism’. Tanaskovic described this ideology as a mix of Islamism, Turkish nationalism and Osman imperialism, a foreign policy strategy that is “nostalgic for imperial times”, he told IPS.

“It is (this) pragmatism that dominates Turkey’s foreign policy,” Lalic says. “Turks are excellent traders and they use that skill always and everywhere,” he added.

Sarajevo columnist Borivoje Simic recently wrote, “Private capital, interested in profit only, which does not differ between nations, colours or race, has yet to enter Bosnia. So far, this country has not proven to be a stable, comfortable place for investment, despite the ‘political love’ that has been expressed by many, including Turkey.”

But a brief look at Turkey’s economic presence in the Balkans shows that this is now changing. According to Turkey’s economic ministry, trade between Turkey and the countries in the Balkans grew from 2.9 billion dollars in 2000 to 18.4 billion dollars in 2011.

At the same time, direct investment into these nations grew from 30 million dollars in 2002 to 189 million in 2011.

“Out of the 1.8 million dollars invested abroad in 2011, seven percent went to the Balkans,” according to Turkish offocials. This money was poured into diverse industries such as communications, banking, construction, mining and retail sectors.

Culturally, too, Turkey’s presence in the Balkan’s is increasing rapidly.

“Turkish soap-operas have (become more popular than) South American shows,” Tanaskovic told IPS.

“It is this strategy (so-called ‘soft power’) that creates a positive image about Turkey,” he said in reference to the dozens of Turkish TV series that currently rule the Balkans’ screens.

Millions were glued to their TV screens from February until June this year, when the first 55 episodes of a saga on Suleiman the Magnificent aired in the region. Stories of the 16^th century ruler and his court immediately captured the hearts of thousands of citizens.

Such was the popularity of these shows that various sociologists began to study the phenomenon.

“The Turkish oriental element presents a shared and familiar atmosphere for millions, harkening back to a collective cultural identity, and even elements of a common language, that have survived for centuries,” according to Lalic.

Turkey has also opened two universities in Bosnia – the International University of Sarajevo (IUS) and the International Burch University (IBU), the latter established by private individuals that include Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen.

“The growing popularity of the Turkish seaside is also an indicator” of closer ties, Lalic added.

The Turkish seaside ranks third among Serbs, whose favourite holiday destinations have hitherto been Montenegro or Greece. Now the Turkish Mediterranean coast is attracting thousands: 140,000 Serbs flew there in the first half of the year, with more tourists expected in the coming months.

“It is such fun to be in Turkey,” said Ivana Djuraskovic (40), who plans to re-visit the Turkish resort of Bodrum this year.

“When I hear ‘Turkish’ words, which are Serbian as well, such as sanduk (box), kapija (gate), hajde (come on), taman (enough), carsav (linen), secer (sugar), kackavalj (cheese) or kralj (king), I feel at home,” she added.

(END)