A government survey team in 1939 found what engineers always hope for: a stretch of coast where the deep water comes almost to the beach. Sheltered by São Marcos Bay, the site that would become Porto do Itaqui had the geology for berthing and the geography for shipping lanes. And then it waited. Twenty-seven years passed before construction began in 1966; eight more before the first vessel tied up in July 1974. The port is now one of Brazil's largest cargo terminals and the gateway for a hinterland that stretches west to the border of Bolivia.
Most Brazilian ports are accessed through narrow, silted channels that require constant dredging. Itaqui opens through a channel 1.8 kilometers wide with a minimum depth of 23 meters - numbers that allow Capesize bulk carriers and large tankers to enter without restriction. The main wharf runs 1,616 meters long and nine meters deep at its base, with six berths where water depths range from 9.5 to 19 meters. That combination of channel depth and berth capacity is why cargo that enters Brazil through this part of the country usually enters here.
Itaqui's economic reach is vast. Cargo flowing through the port serves Maranhão, Piauí, Tocantins, southwestern Pará, northern Goiás, northeastern Mato Grosso, and western Bahia - a hinterland that covers much of Brazil's interior farm belt and mining zone. Soybeans from the Cerrado arrive by rail on three different gauges, meeting at the port for loading onto bulk carriers headed to Asia and Europe. Aluminum ingots from the Alumar smelter next door, iron ore and pig iron from the Carajás mining complex, and copper from the same region round out the main cargoes.
The facilities read like an industrial inventory. Four vertical silos hold 12,000 tons of grain, backed by a horizontal silo with 8,000 tons more and eight additional verticals totaling 7,200 tons. Sixty-six tanks store 320,000 cubic meters of liquid bulk cargo. Two massive spheres - visible for miles - store 8,680 cubic meters of liquid petroleum gas. Three reach stackers handle containers, two ship loaders move dry bulk, and cranes rated for 64 and 104 tons service the heavier lifts. The scale is deliberately oversized; the port is built to grow, not to meet today's demand.
The Maranhão Port Complex is not Itaqui alone. Two private terminals operate immediately adjacent: Ponta da Madeira, owned by the mining giant Vale, is one of the world's largest iron-ore loading facilities, handling cargo from Carajás via the 892-kilometer EFC railway. The Alumar Terminal serves the Consórcio Alumar aluminum smelter, one of the largest in the Americas. Together the three facilities form one of the busiest cargo complexes in Latin America. For São Luís, just 11 kilometers to the northeast, the port is both economic anchor and reminder that this UNESCO-listed colonial city sits on an island that has always traded with the world.
Coordinates 2.57°S, 44.36°W. Porto do Itaqui occupies the southern shore of São Luís Island on São Marcos Bay. Marechal Cunha Machado International Airport (ICAO SBSL) lies 15 km to the northeast, serving São Luís. From altitude the port complex appears as a continuous line of wharves, silos, and cargo yards stretching several kilometers along the bay; the two Alumar aluminum spheres and the long Ponta da Madeira iron-ore piers are distinctive landmarks. The city of São Luís occupies the northeastern end of the same island. Best visibility runs July through December.