Cartagena,
Colombia port expansion gets green light
09 November 2007
Sociedad
Portuaria Regional de Cartagena has decided to forge ahead
with its US$400 million expansion plan at Contecar,
a
private container terminal it acquired in 2005.
The decision to push ahead with expansion at the Contecar facility
rather than add more equipment at its 900,000 TEUs capacity Manga
terminal, is being driven by the company's desire to be ready for
the completion of the expansion of the Panama Canal in 2014.
Three Noell post-panamax ship-to-shore gantry cranes and eight Kalmar
RTGs, representing an investment of $37 million, will now be delivered
to the Contecar terminal instead of being installed at the existing
operations in Manga, as originally planned.
Contecar's 86 ha land area and its potential for more than 1,200
m of quay make the Contecar development more attractive in terms
of handling the 6,300 TEU post-panamax vessels to be deployed in
the Caribbean by shipping lines from next year.
Capacity at the company's Manga terminal will be reached
in as little as two years.
The first equipment will be operating at Contecar by the end of
2008. An order for a further three ship-to-shore gantry cranes with
a reach of up to 22 rows across, and additional RTGs, is due to
be placed shortly to take capacity to as much as 1.2 million TEUs
in the medium term.
In the long term, Moffat & Nichol's designs envisage 14 gantry cranes,
55 RTGs, 22 empty handlers and 100 trucks. The equipment alone will
cost just over $200 million.
SPRC is in talks with lenders to secure the funding required for
land improvements and to acquire the additional equipment.
It has been in talks with the International Finance Corporation
as well as other multilateral finance groups and private investment
banks.
Cartagena has established itself as Colombia's premier container
port since being privatised in 1993.
Last year, it posted growth of 16 percent reaching 811,083
TEUs, and volumes are expected to reach the 1 million TEU mark this
year.
While it manages its Manga terminal under a 40-year concession,
the Contecar terminal is privately owned. It is currently used for
ro-ro cargo and smaller container and general cargo vessels.
SPRC is seeking to capitalise on its position less than
a day's sailing from the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal,
which will be able to accommodate vessels of up to 12,500 TEUs from
2014.
Container traffic in the region of 31 million TEUs a year is set
to grow at more than 10 percent in the medium-term.
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