ICTSI inks 30-year contract to operate port in Honduras

MANILA, Philippines - Port giant International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) has signed a 30-year contract to operate and maintain a container and cargo terminal of Puerto Cortes in Honduras.

ICTSI finance manager Arthur Tabuena informed the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that the company through subsidiary Operadora de Puerto Cortes SA de CV signed the contract yesterday for the design, finance, construction, preservation, operations and exploitation of the container and general cargo terminal for Puerto Cortes.

Last Feb. 1, the technical committee of the bid process composed of the members of the Commission for the Public-Private Alliance (Coalianza), an entity of the federal government of Honduras, and Ficohsa Bank awarded the contract to ICTSI during a public hearing held in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Tabuena said the terminal would have 1.100 meters of quay for containers and 400 meters for general cargo, 14 meters of draft, a total of 12 ship-to-shore (STS) cranes, and a total volume capacity of 1.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) once completed.

The container and general cargo terminal would be situated in a 62.2-hectare property.

ICTSI has allocated $550 million for its capital expenditures this year to bankroll its operations abroad particularly in Argentina and Mexico and at the same time expand its presence in the Philippines.

The publicly-held port operator would also use the budget to ramp-up of construction activities in Colombia as well as in Davao, southern Philippines. 

The company spent $465.6 million for its expansion last year against a full year capital expenditure budget of $550 million in 2012.

Projects last year included the construction of a new berth, additional yard space and acquisition of major cargo handling equipment in the company’s container terminal operation in Manila, capacity expansions in its operations in Ecuador and Brazil, and development of new container terminals in Argentina and Mexico. 

Early this year, the company through its ICTSI Treasury BV raised $400 million as part of its $750 million medium term note program to fund expansion programs.

ICTSI booked a 10 percent growth in net income to $144 million last year from $131 million recorded in 2011 as consolidated volume handled climbed 7.5 percent to 5.628 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from 5.233 million TEUs.

Volume growth was traced to the increase in international and domestic trade, new shipping line customers and routes, continuous containerization of break bulk cargoes, the full period contribution of the company’s new ports in Portland, Oregon, USA and Rijeka, Croatia,

The growth was also traced to the consolidation of the volume generated by the ICTSI’s new terminal operations in Jakarta, Indonesia and Karachi, Pakistan. 

This translated to a 10 percent growth in revenues from port operations to $729.3 million last year from $664.8 million in 2011.

Excluding the volume from the four recent port acquisitions, organic volume growth was at four percent. 

ICTSI said the volume from six key terminal operations in Manila, Brazil, Poland, Ecuador, Madagascar and China rose six percent to 4.109 million TEUs from 3.867 million TEUs and accounted for 73 percent of the company’s consolidated volume last year.

ICTSI is a leading port management company involved in the operations and development of 27 marine terminals and port projects in 19 countries worldwide.  The company was among the first international terminal operators to take its expertise overseas.