Aguadulce port in Buenaventura making progress - operations will begin in the last trimester of 2013
Aguadulce port in Buenaventura making progress; operations will begin in the last trimester of 2013
SOURCE: PORTAFOLIO
Date: Th Dec 09 2010
The rapid growth of commerce in the Asia-Pacific region will bring cargo for all the Buenaventura operators, where those who have the best technology will win the competition. After having obtained the environmental permits for the works and for the construction of a 21.5 kilometer access road, the Aguadulce industrial port project, located in Buenaventura, has fully entered the infrastructure preparation phase that will allow for operations to begin in the last trimester of 2013.
Of a total investment in this new connecting point for international trade nearing 400 million dollars, at least 70 million dollars have already been invested in the beginning phases of land purchase and preparation, relocation of homes and construction of the road that will accelerate operation times, as it will avoid the need for trucks to enter the city (Isla Cascajal) to unload and load merchandise.
The General Manager of the Aguadulce Industrial Port Society (Spia), Miguel Abisambre, indicates that “land moving has already commenced,” in view of the fact that the first phase of the highway, that of 5 kilometers, will be completed in the next six weeks and bidding for the construction of the additional 16 kilometers has already begun.
This road will cost almost 60 million dollars, and in 2014 it will be a national highway, which will be managed by the National Road Institute (Invias).
Moreover, to date 6.7 billion pesos have been disbursed for the projects and compensations of 200 new homes, which have been constructed jointly with the community that lives in the area.
HOW THE OPERATION WILL WORK
The Aguadulce port, whose majority shareholder is the Philippine multinational company Ictsi (with 91.29 percent ownership), envisages a first phase of 570 meters of container piers, for an operational capacity of 400,000 containers per year.
In the final phase the pier will have a total expanse of 900 meters total, with the capacity to attend close to 1,200,000 containers per year. According to Abisambra, this capacity is equivalent to the line of the Cartagena Port society pier.
Currently the Buenaventura port has a 2,000 meter mooring line, of which almost 600 meters are dedicated to containers. “It will be something like one and a half times what Buenaventura has today,” the director indicated.
In terms of equipment, the port will have nine gantry cranes, developed in three stages, which will provide it with a large operational capacity taking into account that to date there are 11 cranes in the country in all ports (four in Cartagena, four in Buenaventura and recently three operation points in the Cartagena container port).
Bulk products (grains and flour) and coal will also move through Aguadulce, which activity will be operated by the Boscoal firm, an association between Muelles El Bosque (specialized in Bulk Products in Cartagena and Buenaventura) and Interamerican Coal (a multinational company that operates in coal and coke in the country), originating in the Cundinamarca-Boyaca tableland.
For the practice of these two activities an expanse of 250 meters of the pier will be available, for a yearly handling capacity of two million tons of bulk products and two million tons of coal. In the first stage a movement of one million tons yearly of each of these products is foreseen.
According to Alberto Jimenez Rojas, General Manager of Muelles El Bosque, the stocking yard will have a maximum storage capacity of 90,000 tons, while the bulk products area will have 60,000 ton cereal storage silos and a 30,000 ton specialized warehouse for storage of flours and sub-products.
Conpes defines the course of action to deepen the canal
The General Manager of the Aguadulce Port, Miguel Abisambra, said that the five Buenaventura port concessions are the responsibility of the Minister of Transportation, German Cardona, that in order to make progress in the development of the port access channel the Conpes document 3611 of 2009 must be referred to, wherein 95 billion pesos were provided for the dredging and deepening to 13.5 meters, compared to 10.5 meters currently.
Additionally, according to the document, there is an item for a study of additional deepening projects, in accordance with the expansion of the Panama Canal, which will have a depth of 15.5 meters in the year 2014.
The director indicates that although the cost of the dredging and maintenance of the new access channel will depend on the findings of the studies of the presence of rocks and other materials, there is a reference value that indicates that each 2 million cubic meters of dredging may cost around 20 million dollars. He also indicates that it was requested not to charge a toll on ships nor cargo, because the port commission resources are used precisely for port maintenance.
Due to the lack of resources, the Government wants the port societies to assume the cost of construction of the access channel dredging, which cost would be paid for from the commission for the use of the area.
According to Abisambra, the operators have already agreed to the creation of an association, which would act only as an elected delegate of the operators to the Government, for which reason the Executive would perform the dredging execution.
The construction of the new port will require an investment of 400 million dollars.
Ictsi is worldwide protagonist
Ictsi is a subsidiary of the Philippine company International Container Terminal Services, and it specializes in the handling and administration of containers, as it has 6 ports in the Philippines and another 14 in the world. This company has been seen as one of the protagonists of the mobilization of products that the commercial growth in the Asia-Pacific region will bring, as it has a presence in Manzanillo (Mexico), it will be in Buenaventura, it is the Guayaquil (Ecuador) port operator and it will also have operations in Argentina.
