The demonstration and blockade of the port of Manzanillo by customs employees has begun to affect the operations of the port terminals .

SSA Marine Mexico announced in a statement to its clients that it has suspended appointment scheduling “until we have a clearer picture of the situation. We ask for your support in not generating appointment requests on our portal until further notice.”

Customs officials have closed all access points to the port since the afternoon of May 14, in protest of alleged poor working conditions since the arrival of Captain Rodolfo Torres Chávez as head of the Manzanillo customs office.

On May 12, customs workers, mostly civilians, carried out a nine-hour initial closure, but it ended after negotiations with authorities. Apparently, during this new demonstration and closure, there has been no contact between the authorities and the complainants.

“As a support to our customers, the Specialized Container Terminal (SSA) and the Multipurpose Terminal (OCUPA) will not be charging for missed appointments or changes to those facilities today (May 15),” SSA Marine Mexico said in its statement.

For its part, Contecon Manzanillo , also the operator of a specialized container terminal, urged transport users not to send export or import units until further notice, in order to avoid further logistical disruptions.

“We are coordinating with Asipona Manzanillo to mitigate the impact,” the company said in its statement to customers, also stating that vessel service continues as normal.

During the first four months of this year, the Port of Manzanillo handled a total of 1,291,721 20-foot containers (TEU) , a 1.5% increase over the same period last year. Contecon Manzanillo and SSA are the main container terminal operators at this maritime hub .

In terms of tax collection,  the Manzanillo customs office is the second most active in the country , behind only the Nuevo Laredo customs office, Mexico’s most important border crossing with the United States.

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El cargo SSA Marine Mexico suspends appointment scheduling due to closure of the port of Manzanillo apareció primero en T21.

Contecon Manzanillo has taken the lead in handling containers at Mexico’s main port by 2025 .

Official statistics indicate that, during January of this year, the operator of the Specialized Container Terminal (TEC) II handled 136,872 20-foot containers (TEU) , a figure that places it above SSA Marine México for the first time – if compared only with the activity of TEC I – who had historically led this statistic.

The January figure reached by Contecon Manzanillo, belonging to the Philippine International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI) , is 10.9% higher than the January 2024 record , according to the monthly report of the National Port System Administration (Asipona) Manzanillo .

TEC II, which began operations in August 2013, saw a significant boost in import activity, with 69,228 TEUs during January 2025, which meant an annual increase of 41.3 percent.

In exports,  the total amount was 53,926 TEUs or 5.2% more, according to the comparison periods.

In a recent interview with T21, José Antonio Contreras, general manager of Contecon Manzanillo, indicated that they expect a “significant increase” in container handling this year .

TEC II is currently in its third phase of expansion , which involves the expansion of its container yards, its dock, its railway lines and the incorporation of new equipment (mainly cranes) in response to the strong demand for maritime services for loading and unloading containerized goods.

For its part, SSA Marine México, operator of TEC I at the port of Manzanillo, handled 129,510 TEUs during January 2025 , which was reflected in a 2.5% drop compared to the January 2024 record.

OCUPA , a multi-use terminal acquired in 2022 by SSA Marine México, handled 26,707 TEU (-5.5%); while TIMSA , from the multinational Hutchison Ports , added 35,769 TEU (+45%).

In total, the port of Manzanillo handled 328,859 TEUs during the first month of this year, or 6.3% more than the same month a year earlier.

This last figure is divided into 147,342 TEU of import (13.7% more) and 135,285 TEU of export (9.8% more).

Measured by volume, the port handled 1,828,626 tons of containerized cargo (import and export) in January 2025, just 2.5% less than the same month last year.

The Port of Manzanillo is the country’s main port for handling containerized goods . Last year alone, it handled 39.8% of the national total, with just over 23.5 million tons; but if the calculation is made by number of containers, it handled 41.8% of the national total, with three million 924 thousand 515 TEU.

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El cargo Contecon Manzanillo is crowned; it surpasses SSA’s TEC I in container handling apareció primero en T21.