Itaguaí () is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

located in the

Brazilian state The federative units of Brazil () are subnational entities with a certain degree of autonomy (self-government, self-regulation, and self-collection) and endowed with their own government and constitution, which together form the Federative Repu ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

and contains several important iron ore loading ports of the world including Ilha Guaiba. Its population was 134,819 in 2020 and its area is 273 km². The city was founded in 1688 and lies midway between

and

Angra dos Reis Angra dos Reis (; Portuguese language, Portuguese for ''cove'' or ''bay of the Kings'') is a List of municipalities in Rio de Janeiro, municipality located in the southern part of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro. Th ...

. Itaguaí is located approximately 75 km west of the city of

on the road to Santos (SP). It is located between the shore of Sepetiba Bay and the Atlantic Rainforest. Itaguai and the region around it contain some of the largest

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...

exporting

ports Ports collections (or ports trees, or just ports) are the sets of makefiles and Patch (Unix), patches provided by the BSD-based operating systems, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, as a simple method of installing software or creating binary packages. T ...

in Brazil. It also serves also as dormitory town for workers of the industrial western zone (Zona Oeste) of Rio de Janeiro. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Itaguaí.

Port of Itaguai (Sepetiba / Guaiba island)

The Port of Itaguai was opened as a deepwater port in 1982, primarily to export

alumina Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as aluminium oxide. It is commonly ...

and other minerals found in the

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...

region. It includes ports of Itaguai, Sepetiba and Guaiba island. The port of Sepetiba is located in the port of Itaguaí. As of August 2018, the port accommodates large bulk carriers (170,000 deadweight). The Port of Sepetiba is further divided into two administrative regions - Sepetiba Bay and Sepetiba terminal. The Port of Guaíba island (also known as Ilha Guaiba terminal), located close by has separate terminals for exporting mineral ores, but is privately owned by the mining company

Vale A vale is a type of valley. Vale may also refer to: Places Georgia * Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region Norway * Våle, a historic municipality Portugal * Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municip ...

and comes under the authority of the Port of Itaguai (Rio de Janeiro). Guaiba consists of deep water berths for loading the largest bulk carriers in the world, but has no residents and no road connections. Iron ore reaches the terminal through a railway bridge that connects the island to the mainland, and further, to the Vale mines in

. In March 2019, the port, which exports 40 million tonnes of iron ore each year, was closed by the local municipality due to excessive pollution and after the Brumadinho disaster in another mine in Brazil. The closure was short though, as a court injunction was granted to Vale a day later and the port resumed operations.

References

Port cities in Brazil Populated coastal places in Rio de Janeiro (state) Municipalities in Rio de Janeiro (state) {{RiodeJaneiro-geo-stub