Trucks form 28-km line to deliver soybeans to Brazil's Miritituba river terminals

By Ana Mano

SAO PAULO, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Trucks loaded with soybeans faced a 28-kilometer line to deliver the product to grain terminals at the Amazonian port of Miritituba in Para state, according to mid-morning traffic data shared with Reuters by oilseed lobby Abiove on Friday.

Cargill, Bunge, Brazil's Amaggi and logistics firm Hidrovias do Brasil HBSA3.SA operate terminals in the area.

Traffic is normally heavy at this time of year in the vicinity of the Miritituba terminals, which receive soybeans from farms in the Center-West and put them on barges before shipping the grains via ports in the north of Brazil.

This year, Brazilian soybean farmers are reaping what analysts and the government say will be a record-large crop of nearly 180 million metric tons. Most of the country's production gets shipped to China.

In an interview on Friday, Daniel Amaral, an Abiove director for economy and regulatory affairs, said long lines of trucks form every year outside of Miritituba.

Heavy rains tend to aggravate the problem, as well as the fact that a final stretch of the road linking farms in Mato Grosso to the port facilities remains unpaved, he added.

"While the definitive access to the port is not built, these problems persist," Amaral noted.

Via Brasil BR-163, the company that administers 1,009 kilometers (627 miles) of the highway connecting Mato Grosso to the Miritituba facilities, said works are underway to finish building the final 5.7-kilometer stretch of the road by November of this year.