PORT operator International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) bagged the 25-year management and operations contract for the Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT), increasing its port operations in the Mindanao area to three.
According to Phividec Industry Authority (PIA), MCT’s present operator, the notice of award has already been forwarded to the ICTSI main office last Monday. The formal signing of the concession contract is tentatively scheduled next week.
“ICTSI won the 25-year operations contract for MCT after thorough evaluation of bids which they submitted in January,” a reliable PIA source told PortCalls.#8220;The ICTSI bid bested those submitted by Harbour Centre Port Terminals, Inc. (HCPTI) and Asian Terminals, Inc. (ATI), even exceeding what was asked for in the contract,” the source explained.
“The bidding was conducted transparently and the losing bidders will have no basis to question the award as MCT sought legal opinion including from the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel on questions related to typographical errors,” he said.
The source, however, declined to discuss specifics of the ICTSI bid pending the company’s formal receipt of the PIA Board resolution on the awarding passed last Friday.
Before this bid, there were two failed ones. In the last failed bid, HCPTI filed a motion for reconsideration before PIA claiming it committed a typographical error in one of its entries, the key reason it failed to meet the minimum bid requirement. The PIA Board later denied the motion for lack of legal basis.
ATI was also immediately disqualified in one of the failed biddings for submitting a non-conforming bid.
MCT will be the third port operated by ICTSI in Mindanao.It already holds the cargo-handling contract for the Port of Davao and is in joint venture with ATI in the operation of Makar Wharf in General Santos City.
For years, MCT has been barred from accepting local and international cargo after Oro Port, the cargo-handling operator of nearby government port Cagayan de Oro, convinced a local court of the exclusivity of its cargo-handling contract in and out of Cagayan de Oro.
The court, however, lifted its temporary restraining order in late 2006, paving the way for MCT’s commercial operation.
Located along the Macalajar Bay in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental, MCT is seen as a catalyst to economic and industrial development of Metro Cagayan De Oro and Northern Mindanao.
Earlier, PIA expressed bullishness about its prospects for MCT. The terminal is forecasting a 10% increase in shipments this year mostly from agricultural products as well as fruit product plantations and other investing firms in the area.
In its first year of full commercial operations last year, MCT posted a 100% jump in cargo volume to more than 80,000 TEUs from only about 38,000-40,000 TEUs in 2006.
Phase I of MCT, with an annual capacity of 270,000 TEUs, is designed to be operated exclusively for full-container and semi-container vessels. It is equipped with two quayside gantry cranes with a productivity of 30 moves per hour, and four rubber-tired gantries. Its six-hectare container yard has a maximum stacking capacity of 8,000 TEUs at any one time and accepts vessels up to 30,000 deadweight tons. The terminal also has a reefer storage area with a total 262 receptacles.
