Valparaiso is searching an operator for Terminal 2, which will be vacated by TCVAL in March 2022, for a period of four years only. The latter has decided to withdraw as it failed to obtain the necessary permissions to expand it multipurpose facility by a dedicated container terminal and its maximum term does not give it enough time to earn back its investments. The relatively short period is to be used by the port authority to decide how it will proceed with the port development. The question is whether a new box terminal will actually be necessary, as throughput in 2020 dropped to 738,000 TEU, from a peak of 1.067 million TEU in 2017, its lowest figure since 2009.