International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI), through its wholly owned subsidiary ICTSI Middle East DMCC, has signed a concession agreement with the Sea Ports Corporation of Sudan (SPC) to operate, manage, and develop the South Port Container Terminal (SPCT) at the Port Sudan.
The 20-year concession agreement was signed on January 3, ICTSI said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange. The port operator last July 2018 disclosed that SPC confirmed it as the preferred bidder to operate and manage the SPCT.
The tender process had been led by SPC, with Hamburg Port Consulting as international advisor, and attracted bids from a number of international port operators.
With the concession, ICTSI will assume the responsibility of operating and developing SPC’s existing container terminal infrastructure and terminal handling equipment. Meanwhile SPC—the independent state corporation that governs, constructs, and maintains Sudan’s ports, harbors, and lighthouses—will become the landlord and supervisory authority for the terminal.
Transfer of the facilities to ICTSI management will take place in the first quarter of 2019.
The terminal, which has a capacity in excess of one million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), had a throughput of 470,000 TEUs in 2017. The SPCT has a 180-hectare land area, as well as a 1,200-meter quay wall with a designed water depth of up to 16 meters to be able to receive the largest container vessels. It features state-of-the-art container terminal assets, eight ship-to-shore gantry cranes, and an extensive range of yard handling equipment including more than 20 rubber-tired gantry cranes.
Currently, ICTSI is involved in more than 30 terminal concessions and port development projects in several countries worldwide. Terminals it operates in the Philippines include North Harbor where it recently acquired shares, an inland container terminal, and a barge terminal. Its overseas terminals include two in Indonesia, and one each in China, Ecuador, Brazil, Poland, Georgia, Madagascar, Croatia, Pakistan, Mexico, Honduras, Iraq, Argentina, Colombia, DR Congo, Australia and, recently, Motukea Lae in Papua New Guinea.
