The new joint venture will manage and operate Compas’ existing multi-purpose facility in Cartagena, Colombia. APM Terminals now holds a 51% majority share in the operation, which includes annual throughput capacity of 250,000 teu and 1.5 million tonnes of general cargo.
“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, and we look forward to building upon their achievements in the port of Cartagena,” said APM Terminals ceo Kim Fejfer.
CCTO and Compas will jointly invest over $200m 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 that will be able to transit the Panama Canal after the lock-widening project is completed this year.
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 2m teu in 2015, trailing only Balboa and Colón, Panama; Santos, Brazil and Manzanillo, Mexico.
Colombia’s economy is the third-largest in South America, after Brazil and Argentina, and has averaged over 4% annual growth rate since 2010. However due to external conditions, the IMF forecast the economy to expand by 2.9% in 2016.
CCTO becomes the sixth operational Latin American facility within the APM Terminals Global Terminal Network. APM Terminals operates ports in Callao, Peru; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santos, Pecém, and Itajaí, Brazil.
In Mexico, APM Terminals is finishing the construction of a new 1.2m teu deepwater terminal in Lazaro Cardenas, due to open in the second half of this year, while the 1.3m teu deepwater terminal in Moin, Costa Rica, is scheduled to open in 2018.
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