Veracruz Container Terminal

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Philippines' International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) together with Mexico's Ingenieros Civiles Asociados (Grupo ICA) won the bid for the Veracruz container terminal in 1995. The ICTSI-ICA consortium narrowly outbid Mexico's largest shipping line, Transportation Maritima Mexicana, to win the concession to operate the container terminal at Veracruz, where half the nation's box traffic is processed. ICTSI-ICA's bid was US$ 84.3 million, while TMM bid $81.3 million. A poor third was a group including P&O's Australian affiliate, which bid $24.4 million. Internacional de Contenedores Asociados de Veracruz, S.A. de C.V. (ICAVE) was awarded on 24 August 1995 the 20-year concession to operate the container terminal of the Port of Veracruz and installed new equipment and systems, improved and expanded facilities and computerized operations. ICAVE handles 78 per cent of Veracruz's container traffic and 29 per cent of Mexico's traffic.The facility has 2 berths with a length of 340 m and a depth of 11 m, rail service, 4 pier cranes, 5 straddle cranes; yard for reefer container storage; electricity; and open yard storage. ICAVE took over operations just in the middle of the Mexican crisis with traffic flows falling around 20% in 1995 compared to growth in throuput by 18% in the multiple use terminals. The port is just returning to pre-crisis levels, ICAVE raised tarriff levels to the maximum allowed three year ceiling following a indexation formula linking port tarriffs to Mexican inflation, which spurred major protests among the port users. The multipurpose birth is leased to local Stevedore CICE which has attracted part of ICAVE's cargo customers (Sea Land) due to the tarriff hikes and has received investment in handling equipment by CICE of about US$ 10 million. In mid 2001 Hong Kong's Hutchinson Ports Holdings (HPH) acquired ICTSI International Holdings CO. (IIHC), including its 50% stake in ICAVE. Later that year, ICA decided to sell its stake in ICAVE to HPH. (http://www.icave.com.mx/) None