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 breakwater 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.