# Puerto Cabello (VEPBL)

**UN/LOCODE:** VEPBL  
**Country:** Venezuela  
**Water Body:** Caribbean Sea; North Atlantic Ocean  
**Harbor Size:** Medium  
**Harbor Type:** Coastal (Natural)  
**GPS:** 10.4833, -68.0000

Design capacity says roughly 810,000 TEU, the 2023 result about 272,000 — that gap frames what shippers meet at Puerto Cabello (VEPBL), Venezuela's largest port and principal customs gateway. Cargo movement nevertheless rose 46.66% in the first four months of 2026 against the same period a year earlier, according to Venezuela's transport ministry. State operator Bolivariana de Puertos (Bolipuertos) runs the site near the industrial city of Valencia, with container wharves, eleven general-cargo berths, two oil terminals and a chemical terminal at Borburata. Years of underinvestment have left ageing handling equipment and facilities in need of repair, and steps that once took hours can now take days. Pressure grew after an earthquake on 24 June 2026 closed La Guaira, pushing effectively all national cargo through Puerto Cabello; business chambers in Carabobo have warned of crane and trucking bottlenecks. Beyond containers the port moves dry bulk, grain into quayside silos, chemicals and petroleum, with liner calls from Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM and Seaboard Marine. Import and export clearance is concentrated here, though state currency and import controls keep procedures complex, and inland distribution is almost entirely by road — Valencia about 50 km, Maracay roughly 110 km, Caracas some 200 km. The government has announced plans to develop Puerto Cabello and La Guaira into transshipment facilities; for now Maracaibo in the west, or Cartagena and Colón in the wider Caribbean, remain the practical fallbacks.

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

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