# Esmeraldas (ECESM)

**UN/LOCODE:** ECESM  
**Country:** Ecuador  
**Water Body:** North Pacific Ocean  
**Harbor Size:** Very Small  
**Harbor Type:** River (Natural)  
**GPS:** 1.0000, -79.6500

Bananas and timber outbound, steel pipes and billets inbound — that cargo mix defines Esmeraldas, a multipurpose port at the mouth of the Esmeraldas River on Ecuador's northwest coast. Its three berths handle around 850,000 tonnes a year across roughly 690 vessel calls, of which about half are tankers. The port is also the terminus of the trans-Ecuadorian SOTE crude pipeline: the nearby Balao terminal and single buoy moorings load crude and Petroecuador products onto tankers up to 100,000 dwt. Road connections run inland toward Quito and the northern Amazon oil region. For high-volume container traffic, however, Ecuador's main gateways are Guayaquil and the deep-water port of Posorja, so forwarders use Esmeraldas chiefly for breakbulk, bulk and energy cargo.

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*Freight Academy — Seaport Profile: [https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/seaports/esmeraldas-port-ecesm](https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/seaports/esmeraldas-port-ecesm)*

*Markdown mirror: [https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/seaports/en/esmeraldas-port-ecesm](https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/seaports/en/esmeraldas-port-ecesm)*

*LLM-Summary (JSON): https://www.freight-academy.com/api/v1/seaports/esmeraldas-port-ecesm/llm-summary?lang=en*