The opening of APM Terminals Suape in June 2026 was supposed to be a moment of unambiguous triumph for Brazil’s Northeast. Dignitaries, port workers, and executives gathered to celebrate the inauguration of a Reais2bn (US$350 million) container terminal that had been hailed as Latin America’s first fully electrified port facility and the first meaningful expansion of Brazilian container capacity since DP World and Brasil Terminal Portuária opened at Santos more than a decade earlier. Maersk, the global shipping giant behind the project, made grand promises about the future: the initial 400,000 TEU terminal would create jobs, attract new cargoes, help fruit exporters and importers, and breathe new life into the Suape Industrial Port Complex as well as the impoverished state of Pernambuco. Daniel Rose, the CEO named for the new facility, called it a reflection of Maersk’s long-term commitment to Brazil’s growth and logistics infrastructure, adding that the project had already generated thousands of jobs. Carolina Merkle Brown was brought in as COO for both Suape and Maersk’s similar terminal at Pecem on the north coast, a sign of the company’s ambitions to dominate the region’s lucrative fruit export trade. But even as the champagne was being poured, an experienced Brazil watcher reportedly muttered, “It was all supposed to be so different.” Within weeks, that sense of celebration would be swallowed by a dark cloud of accusations, legal threats, and bitter rivalry over who would control the port’s future. The stage was set not for a new era of cooperation, but for a messy, high-stakes fight over cargo, jobs, and the meaning of fair competition.
The storm broke in the second week of August 2026, when Maersk managers delivered an official note to Tecon Suape, the existing container terminal inside the same port complex, operated by International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI). The message was blunt: by the end of the month, the two Maersk services currently calling at Tecon Suape would begin migrating to the new APM Terminals facility across the bay, with more services likely to follow. For Tecon Suape, this was not a competitive inconvenience but an existential threat. The two services, understood to be the Brazilian-flag cabotage operations ALC1 and ALC2 branded under Maersk’s Aliança subsidiary, accounted for roughly 25 to 30 percent of Tecon Suape’s entire throughput. The terminal had handled 725,000 TEU in 2025 and recorded 333,786 TEU in the first half of 2026, exactly matching its performance in the same period the previous year, so the loss would be a massive blow. ICTSI responded with fury, alleging that the migration was “illegal, and not part of the agreement that APMT Suape had signed up for” with the relevant authorities. Thomas Lima, CEO of Tecon Suape, accused Maersk of breaking its promises: “To get the deal past the Brazilian authorities Maersk promised new cargoes and new services, but instead they are taking ours.” APM Terminals and Maersk, for their part, remained coy, refusing to confirm exactly which services would move first, and saying only that the initial call would likely be a smaller cabotage vessel, possibly carrying empty containers. They blamed delays on the “homologation” of a new 15.1-metre draft and, according to other sources, on Brazilian customs authorities who had yet to authorize the terminal’s proposed 238,000 square metre bonded area. None of this did anything to calm the nerves of a terminal suddenly facing an uncertain future.
The dispute soon burst beyond the immediate question of shipping schedules into a deeper and more personal grievance over land, fairness, and the very legitimacy of the new terminal’s existence. ICTSI claimed that APM Terminals had acquired the land for its facility under “false pretences.” The site had originally been set aside for a shipyard venture that never came to fruition, and, according to ICTSI, the land should have been returned to the state when that project was halted. Instead, the owners, Grupo Camargo Corrêa and Queiroz Galvão, sold the land to APM Terminals for Reais450 million (US$85.9 million) after having bought it years earlier for just Reais10 million (US$1.9 million). To ICTSI, this was not a savvy deal but an illegal maneuver that should trigger an investigation into “irregularities.” Brazil’s Deputy Attorney General, Lucas Furtado, took the matter seriously enough to request an inquiry based on documents supplied by ICTSI, and reliable sources suggested that if irregularities were confirmed, the terminal’s entire status could be reviewed. But the allegations went beyond land. Thomas Lima pointed out, with evident bitterness, that the port authority could lose the concession fees Tecon Suape pays every year, estimated at US$77.8 million in 2025, while APM Terminals, operating as a Private Use Terminal (TUP), would not be paying equivalent fees. He also claimed that Tecon Suape might have to cut more than 100 jobs just to remain viable. “This much-vaunted new terminal is not creating new business and jobs,” he said, “but is, in fact, destroying existing ones.” For Lima and ICTSI, this was a story about a powerful global shipping line using its influence to starve a legitimate competitor, and about a government allowing a valuable industrial asset to be privatized on unfairly favorable terms. It was also, unmistakably, a story about human livelihoods caught in the crossfire.
Amid the escalating war of words, the Suape Port Authority tried to position itself as a neutral referee, though its language betrayed a cautious sympathy for the arrival of the new operator. Armando Monteiro Bisneto, the port authority’s CEO, acknowledged that it was “unfortunate” that the two container terminal owners were so vehemently opposed, but he insisted that both could coexist and that the port as a whole would ultimately benefit from increased capacity. “It is our job to be a point of balance between the two terminals and not take sides in this quarrel,” he said in a lengthy interview. Bisneto emphasized that Suape was unique in Brazil’s Northeast in having two container terminals within one public port, with a combined capacity of more than one million TEU, a fact he hoped importers and exporters would see as a selling point. He noted that APM Terminals would add volume and bring new equipment, and that the new European Union trade agreement would help enormously. He also expressed hope that the new terminal would help win back fruit cargoes, particularly mangoes and grapes from the São Francisco Valley, that had drifted away to the ports of Salvador and Pecem. Meanwhile, ICTSI regional vice-president Andres Kjeldsen flew into Suape to reassure the local community and reaffirm the company’s long-term commitment. He spoke warmly of the region and said ICTSI intended to stay for many years. Behind the scenes, talks began about extending Tecon Suape’s concession, currently due to expire in 2031, to as late as 2051 in exchange for up to Reais4bn (US$770 million) in new investment, which would raise annual capacity to 1.4 million TEU and create more than 1,000 new jobs. For Bisneto, this was proof that competition was healthy; for ICTSI, it was a desperate attempt to survive against an opponent that seemed to have been given every advantage. The port authority’s carefully balanced optimism, however, could not hide the reality that a bitter battle was raging just beyond the terminal gates.
This local conflict in Suape is part of a much larger and more troubling pattern across Brazil’s ports, one that has many industry veterans worried about the long-term health of fair competition. For decades, container terminals were independent businesses, serving shipping lines without entanglement. Today, the largest ocean carriers — Maersk, MSC, and CMA CGM to a significant extent — are increasingly taking direct ownership of terminals and then steering their own services toward those in-house facilities, using positions as both customer and competitor to squeeze rivals. As one veteran Brazil watcher from Rio de Janeiro, who asked not to be identified for fear of losing business, put it: “It seems very much like the shipping lines are taking over or establishing new container terminals in Brazil and then transferring, as soon as they can, all their services to their in-house terminals. This is terrible for the maintenance of fair competition.” He and others point to the forthcoming tender for the STS10 terminal at Santos as the next battlefield, with Maersk and MSC likely to compete aggressively. The underlying worry is not just about Suape, or even about Brazil, but about the entire structure of the global shipping industry, where vertical integration threatens to create an uneven playing field. At the same time, there is no denying that Brazil urgently needs additional container capacity. Total fruit exports from the Northeast, worth around US$1.45bn last year and up more than 50 percent since 2021, depend heavily on modern, efficient port infrastructure. Imports of auto parts for plants run by Stellantis and Chinese manufacturers, as well as components for factories in the Suape industrial complex and a large industrial park north of Recife, also demand reliable service. The challenge is how to add that capacity without sacrificing the diversity and independence that keeps ports competitive — and honest.
In the end, the drama at Suape is about much more than two companies fighting over container volumes. It is about the fragile trust between private enterprise, local communities, and the state. The people of Pernambuco were promised jobs, investment, and economic revival, and both APM Terminals and ICTSI have, in their own ways, offered visions of exactly that. But when those promises collide, it is the workers, the truck drivers, the exporters, and the families dependent on the port who are left to wonder whether any of it will actually be good for them. Maersk says the new terminal will add capacity and eventually bring entirely new services, including connections to North America and Europe; ICTSI says it is simply being robbed of what it built. The port authority says there is room for everyone, and perhaps there is, but room is not the same as fairness. The government has been asked to investigate the land deal, the legality of the terminal’s status, and the conduct of the parties involved. If those investigations are serious and transparent, they might restore some credibility. If not, the distrust will only deepen. The first vessels to call at APM Terminals Suape may indeed be small cabotage ships carrying empties, but the real cargo this port is carrying is heavier and more delicate: the hope of a region, the promise of prosperity, and the question of whether Brazil’s ports are genuinely open to all. As one observer mused, it was all supposed to be so different. It still could be, but only if everyone involved remembers that a port is not just a piece of infrastructure — it is a lifeline for the people who depend on it. The clouds over Suape may take time to lift, but perhaps, with honest dialogue and a genuine commitment to shared progress, the sun will eventually shine again on both terminals.