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.