APM Terminals finalises Cartagena joint venture

Jan 21, 2016: APM Terminals and Colombian-based port and terminal operating company, Compañia de Puertos Asociados South America (Compas SA) have finalised the incorporation of Cartagena Container Terminal Operator (CCTO), a new joint venture which will manage and operate Compas SA’s existing multipurpose facility in Cartagena, Colombia. APM Terminals will hold a 51 percent majority share in the operation, which includes annual throughput capacities of 250,000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit) and 1.5 million tonnes of general cargo.

CCTO and Compas SA will jointly invest over $200 million in upgrading and expanding the facility to triple the annual throughput capacity, and enable the terminal to handle vessels up to 13,000 TEU capacity which will be able to transit the Panama Canal after the lock-widening project is completed this year.

“We are proud to expand the APM Terminals Global Terminal Network into this important South American market in partnership with such a highly respected business as Compas SA, and we look forward to building upon their achievements in the port of Cartagena,” said Kim Fejfer, chief executive officer, APM Terminals.

Cartagena, located at the northern tip of South America on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, is the second-busiest container port in South America, and the fifth-busiest in the Latin American/Caribbean Region, with a throughput of over two million TEUs in 2015.

SA recent World Bank report reveals that Colombia’s population of 47 million, the second-largest in South America, has seen the poverty rate decline from 49 percent in 2003 to 21.9 percent in 2014, with economic growth leading to job creation as the main engine of poverty reduction. Increased trade opportunities resulting from port and transportation infrastructure investment and improvement will help to continue to drive Colombia’s economic expansion and social progress.

CCTO is the sixth operational Latin American facility within the APM Terminals Global Terminal Network, which includes ports in Callao, Peru; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santos, Pecém, and Itajaí, Brazil.

APM Terminals is currently building a new 1.2 million TEU deep-water terminal in Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico opening later this year and a new, 1.3 million TEU deep water terminal in Moin, Costa Rica, opening in 2018.

Photo : ( from left to right ) Gabriel Echavarría, president of Compas Board of Directors who signed the deal on behalf of Compas and Joe Nicklaus Nielsen, vice president, Port Investments for APM Terminals