Buenaventura Colombia

Buenaventura is a major port city in Colombia's Valle del Cauca Department, with population over 310,000. Puerto Buenaventura (locode COBUN) is on the Pacific Ocean and is Colombia's principal/main port. By annual cargo shipping volumes it is ranked the country's second-largest (following only Puerto Bolivar) and in the top-5 is followed by Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta. However, Puerto Bolivar/Guajira is a private coal export terminal but still is Colombia's largest port by cargo traffic.

Being Colombia's principal port, Buenaventura is also the "port of registry" for all Colombia-flagged ships.

Puerto Buenaventura is on Cascajal Island and approx 15 km (9 mi) away from the ocean (up Dagua River). Cascajal Island is connected to the mainland via a road bridge. The Port is privately owned (by Sociedad Portuaria Regional de Buenaventura SA) and handles annually ~1300 vessels. It has the capacity to accommodate all types of marine vessels, including container ships, cargo carriers (dry, liquid, breakbulk), oil tankers, Ro-Ro ships and passenger ships (cruisers). The Port handles annually ~20 million tons of cargo (19+ million in 2019, ~26M in 2018/record year) while Puerto Bolivar's annual cal export is 23+ million tons. Buenaventura's annually handles 1,2+ million TEU containers.

The Port covers land area of approx 0,65 km2 (0,25 mi2) and has a total of 14 berths (ship docking facilities) with a total quay length ~2 km (1,2 mi). The Port handles mainly bulk cargo at Terminal de Graneles Solidos (sugar, grain, soya, fertilizers, carbamide), also Ro-Ro cargo (vehicles, machinery), general cargo (materials), TEUs (at the TCBUEN Terminal), liquid cargo (chemicals, petroleum). The main traffic is with Argentina, the USA, Canada and Russia.

Over the last two decades, Buenaventura Port's cargo volumes are increasing steadily, but its coal export volumes are generally decreasing. The tendency followed the opening in 2017 of the nearby Port Aguadulce, as Buenaventura provides less storage and loading capacity (max 16800 tons) than Aguadulce (max 110000 tons), including max daily loading capacity (5500 vs 24000).

The Port currently can accommodate ships with max DWT 40,000 tons, max LOA length 210 m (690 ft) and max draft 10 m (33 ft). Buenaventura handles ~60% of Colombia's imports and exports by sea. Bahia Malaga is an anchorage site (deepwater port) for large ships that cannot access Buenaventura.

As cruise port, Buenaventura was inaugurated in 2023 with the arrival of Plantour’s ship MS Hamburg on November 22nd. Buenaventura was included in the ship's 249-day-long Around The World Voyage (July 23, 2023, through April 3, 2024).

In 2011, China started to consider a future Buenaventura Port expansion with a China-built railway linking Colombia's Pacific and Caribbean coasts as an alternative to the Panama Canal. The project includes building a 790-km/490-mi long railroad to serve Colombia's coal export (from the interior coalfields via Uraba and Cupica to Buenaventura) to China. The railway project also includes Puerto Buenaventura to be expanded via dredging and construction works (as both max draft and facilities) to be able to accommodate larger bulk carriers and to an annual cargo volume ~40 million tons.

The city is surrounded by 9 large rivers (Dagua, Anchicaya, Calima, Raposo, Mayorquin, Cajambre, Yurumangui, Naya, San Juan) plus 5 smaller rivers (Agua Clara, San Marcos, Sabaletas, San Cipriano, Escalerete) which supply the city with potable/drinking water via an aqueduct.

Buenaventura's Gerardo Tobar Lopez Airport (approx 6 km / 4 mi to the south of the city) serves regularly scheduled domestic flights (by the Colombian airlines EasyFly and SATENA) linking to Colombia's capital Bogota.