ICTSI to take over Honduras port

MANILA, Philippines - Port giant International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) expects to take over within the month the container and general cargo terminal in Honduras with a capacity of 1.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

ICTSI vice president and controller Jose Joel Sebastian informed the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that the port operator through Operadora Portuaria Centroamericana de CV (formerly Operadora de Puerto Cortes SA de CV) executed the Delivery, and Reception Deed of the terminal 1 last Monday.

The deed was executed with the Commission for the Promotion of the Public - Private Alliance, the National Port Authority, Banco Financiera Comercial Hondurena SA pursuant to the contract for the design, finance, construction, preservation, operations, and exploitation of the terminal for Puerto Cortes in Honduras.

“The actual and physical takeover of the operations of the terminal shall take place before the end of November,” Sebastian stressed.

Last March, ICTSI’s subsidiary signed a 30-year contract to operate and maintain a container and cargo terminal situated in a 62.2-hectare property of Puerto Cortes in Honduras.

Sebastian 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 TEUs once completed.

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. 

ICTSI’s net income jumped 27 percent to $135.65 million in the first nine months of the year from $106.84 million in the same period last year while revenues from port operations rose 19 percent to $624.7 million from $524.7 million.

The port operator attributed the higher net income attributable to equity holders for the first nine months to strong revenue growth and margin improvement in certain key terminals and the contribution from the new terminal in Karachi, Pakistan.

Consolidated volume handled increased 13 percent to 4.628 million TEUs from 4.083 million TEUs due to the continuous growth in international and domestic trade in most of the company’s terminals and the volume generated by Pakistan International Container Terminal in Karachi and PT Olah Jasa Andal in Jakarta, Indonesia.

“The increase in revenues was mainly due to the volume growth, higher storage revenues and ancillary services, tariff rate increases in certain key terminals, and the revenue contribution from the new terminals in Jakarta, Indonesia and Karachi, Pakistan,” ICTSI said.

Excluding the revenues from the newly acquired terminals and the effect of the cessation of the operations in Syria last January, ICTSI said organic revenue growth was at one percent.

ICTSI’s seven key terminal operations in Manila, Brazil, Poland, Madagascar, China, Ecuador and Pakistan accounted for 79 percent of the group’s consolidated volume in the first nine months.