Barge Business
We service the Argentine, Bolivian, Brazilian, Paraguayan and Uruguayan river transportation markets through our fleet of 359 vessels in our Barge Business. We operate different types of pushboats and wet and dry barges for delivering a wide range of dry and liquid products between ports in the Hidrovia Waterway. We typically contract our vessels either on a time charter basis or on a CoA basis or in the spot market.
Fleet: We control 359 vessels in our Barge Business, including 30 pushboats, 268 dry barges, 58 tank barges and three LPG barges. Our dry barge fleet is nearly three times the size it was in January 2008. The average age of our pushboats, weighted on the basis of horsepower, is 37 years. The average age of our barges, weighted on the basis of DWT, is 25 years.
Products Transported: We provide transportation for dry cargo (cereals, cotton pellets, soy bean, wheat, limestone (clinker), mineral iron and rolling stones), liquid cargo (hydrocarbons such as crude oil, gas oil, naphtha, fuel oil and vegetable oils) and liquefied cargo (liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)). During 2020, we transported approximately 1.9 million cubic meters of liquids or tons of dry cargo, consisting of approximately 0.4 million cubic meters of liquids and 1.5 Mt of dry cargo (compared to 2.1 million cubic meters of liquids or tons of dry cargo in 2019).