Crowded out
Chinese demand had ended a century of steadily falling raw-material costs for rich-world consumers
LOOK OUT ON any day from Pier Two at the Tubarão Port complex in Brazil and you will see at least half a dozen ships on the horizon. The queue of waiting vessels allows the port's loading manager, Leonardo Barone, to keep its three piers in constant use. Tubarão is owned by Vale, the world's largest iron-ore company. A record 104m tonnes of ore was shipped from here last year.
Back from the water's edge a phalanx of huge dumpers unload iron ore from the trains arriving from Vale's mines in Minas Gerais. The 905km railroad carries 40% of Brazil's rail freight on just 3% of its track. A standard freight train on this line has 252 carriages and three locomotives. Around 4,000 carriages are emptied in Tubarão each day.
This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline "Crowded out"
From the September 24th 2011 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition