⚓Public works· 2012-2023
The deep-water port that was never built
Uruguay decreed expropriations and spent millions on studies for an ocean port in Rocha that, fourteen years later, still does not exist.
Figure published by the sources
US$ 5,5 millones invertidos en estudios según Presidencia (2019); El Observador consignó US$ 6,6 millones gastados por la comisión del proyecto (2023)
Bodies involved
Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas · Administración Nacional de Puertos
What it is
The project for a deep-water port on Rocha's Atlantic coast was pushed hard under José Mujica's government, which called it the most important foreign-policy move of his administration. On 27 June 2012 the president signed a decree submitting the enabling legislation to the General Assembly and designating 458 parcels for expropriation on public-interest grounds, in Rocha's 10th cadastral section, between kilometres 236.5 and 242 of Route 10, in the El Palenque area. The project's viability rested on the cargo the Aratirí mining venture was expected to generate. The State commissioned legal, economic, environmental and engineering studies.
What is questioned
El Observador reported on 20 January 2013 that the government widened the expropriation to more than 2,500 hectares in the El Palenque area, with a minimum estimated outlay of US$ 30 million based on market values surveyed by National Topography Director Jorge Franco. On 15 March 2015 the same outlet reported that the project fell outside the priorities of Tabaré Vázquez's government — Minister Víctor Rossi said it would not be built during that term — because the terminal "only makes sense with demand that today is not assured": Aratirí had suspended its large-scale extraction plan, which was to supply 18 million of the 61.4 million tonnes a year projected. The Presidency stated in October 2019 that some US$ 5.5 million had been invested in multidisciplinary studies, an amount that "does not exceed 0.6%" of the estimated cost of an actual port work; in December 2023, El Observador put at US$ 6.6 million the amount spent by the commission that studied the project during Mujica's term, before Zamin Ferrous withdrew.
Why it matters to you
That is millions of dollars in studies and expropriation decrees over private land for a work that fourteen years later does not exist. The cost is not only the money spent: it is parcels and families left for years under the uncertainty of an announced expropriation.
Where it stands
The port was never built. In December 2023 El Observador reported on a private initiative called La Paloma Hub, worth US$ 1.6 billion with a 50-year concession, under evaluation by the transport ministry and generating internal debate in Lacalle Pou's government over its impact on the seaside resort; officials also noted Chinese interest in that type of project. As of this file's closing (August 2026) there is no record of an awarded project or work under way.
The open-data cross-reference
Open this set in the explorerWhat the state awarded to the bodies and companies named in this file, according to the official Compras Estatales data. It is a cross-reference for scale, not proof of irregularity: it includes contracts nobody questioned.
How this cross-reference was builtcontracts whose object mentions “consultoría” · everything recorded under 2 buying units of the named bodies (not only this case) · between 2012 and 2023
Who was paid
Suppliers ranked by amount awarded in the cross-reference. A contract with several suppliers counts in full against each one: this is a ceiling, not a split.
What it bought
Spending by category, from price times quantity of each awarded item, in the contract currency.
Contracts per year
The detail
The largest contracts in the cross-reference, high to low. Tap one for its record and the link to the official purchase.
- SERVICIO DE CONSULTORÍA PARA LA ELABORACIÓN Y BERVEJILLO TERRA FEDERICO · 13 dic. 2022$ 900.000
- CONSULTORÍA PARA LEVANTAMIENTOS CON SISTEMA RTK CLEDIRSA LTDA · 12 set. 2017$ 10.500
Amounts in pesos, normalised. Records with impossible quantities are excluded from the total. Consultancies and studies may appear in state procurement if they were contracted by the transport ministry or the port authority. Expropriations and inter-institutional agreements do not go through that channel, so the project's total cost cannot be reconstructed from the search tool alone. The sources explain the project's abandonment by the collapse of expected demand, not by any irregularity.