On the afternoon of this Monday, the first large ship arrived at the port of Tumaco with a total of 1.26 million gallons of fuels in order to guarantee the supply in Nariño, which is practically isolated due to the closure of the Pan-American highway.
After unloading, the ship will immediately return to the port of Buenaventura to carry out a new loading that takes 10 hours, which means that every three days there will be 1.5 million gallons in Tumaco for a total average of 500,000 gallons of fuel per day for the Colombian southwest.
(Also read: The nine measures that Petro announced to address the crisis in the southwestern part of the country)
«The daily demand for fuel in departments like Nariño is 440,000 gallons. As of the arrival of deep-draft ships, we are going to guarantee the supply for the department and thus reduce the serious effects of this crisis as a result of the closure of the Pan-American Highway«, said Harry Kahn, president of the Tumaco Port Society.
The goal is that, by the end of January, one eight million gallons of fuel enter the Port of Tumaco and thus regularize the operation and supply for the departments of Nariño and Cauca.
In addition to the storage and distribution of fuels, the Port of Tumaco has a capacity of 140,000 tons for all types of bulk such as fertilizers and cement. Therefore, from here you can send loads of potato, coconut, coffee, rice and sugar that they are dammed in Nariño and that they could leave in the next few days towards the interior of the country.
(Also read: Electric stoves are running out in Nariño: gas is scarce due to a collapse in Panamericana)
The Port of Tumaco also has an indoor storage capacity for 10,000 tons of food that distributors could use to reduce the food shortage that Nariño is going through.
Finally, this terminal hopes that the promise of President Gustavo Petro to raise a negotiation so that exports and imports through the port are expandedin addition to increasing the trawling of 13 meters deep in order to receive vessels of greater draft.