VLI, one of Brazil's leading multimodal logistics operators, has renewed a long-term contract with BP and its local bioenergy arm to continue -and significantly expand - the movement of sugar from mills in Brazil's interior to export terminals on the country's southeastern coast.
The agreement, signed April 15 on the sidelines of Intermodal South America 2026 in São Paulo, covers the transportation of Very High Polarization sugar produced by BP Bioenergy, which operates sugarcane mills across three Brazilian states. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, Datamar News reported.
The renewal cements a partnership that has already moved mountains of the commodity. Over the past five harvest seasons alone, VLI transported roughly 6.4 million tonnes of sugar for BP Bioenergy from nine mills in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Goiás states, in addition to output from partner facilities.
VLI’s position in Brazil’s sugar export market is substantial. The company handles one-fifth of all sugar shipped out of the Santos port region – Latin America’s largest port – through its Luiz Antonio Mesquita Port Integrator Terminal, known as Tiplam, according to data from Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.
Santos is the world’s single largest sugar export hub, making VLI’s share a significant commercial advantage and a key reason BP chose to deepen the relationship rather than seek alternatives.
Under the new arrangement, VLI will manage the entire logistics chain from mill to ship. Trucks collect sugar directly from BP Bioenergy’s production facilities and carry it overland to VLI rail terminals in Uberaba, in Minas Gerais state, and Guará, in São Paulo state. From those transfer points, freight travels along the Centro-Atlântica Railway to the Santos port region, where it is loaded onto vessels bound for buyers across the globe.
The expanded contract also includes direct shipments loaded straight from the production line at select mills - an arrangement that demands precise scheduling and tightly controlled loading sequences to prevent supply chain disruptions.
Carolina Hernandez Tascon, VLI’s executive director for commercial operations, projects and strategic planning, framed the deal as a validation of the company’s broader business model.
“The renewal of this partnership is a clear sign of confidence in VLI’s multimodal strategy,” she said. “BP is an important partner that, like VLI, values safety and efficiency in its operations.”
Powering VLI’s road operations is Trato, a proprietary digital platform developed internally through the company’s innovation program. The platform coordinates the movement of trucks to and from VLI’s road-rail and port terminals, managing scheduling, load matching and driver communications in real time.
BP Bioenergy was Trato’s first client to sign a long-term contract with the platform – and that agreement, too, has now been renewed.
Since going live, Trato has overseen more than two million truck trips over four years, reducing idle waiting time at loading and unloading bays and directing better-suited vehicles to specific cargo demands. The company says the system has meaningfully improved both driver experience and overall asset efficiency across its terminal network.
For VLI, the BP renewal is also a statement about the direction of Brazilian agribusiness logistics – where the integration of rail, road and port infrastructure, underpinned by digital tools, is increasingly becoming the standard rather than the exception.