A GOVERNMENT-owned industrial estate announced that several companies have filed their respective bids to manage the Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT), perhaps the most modern in the area. Considered as an alternative facility to other ports in southern Philippines, the terminal is currently subsumed under the Phividec (Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corp.) Industrial Authority.

In a Tuesday interview, a Phividec official said that the terminal has attracted at least five companies, which includes all three port operators in Manila. The bidders are Asian Terminals Inc., Amer Asia, Harbour Centre Port Terminals Inc. (HCPTI), International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI), and Maersk Lines.

Of the group, only Amer Asia is relatively unknown in the industry while Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company, regularly docks at the facility.

Publicly-listed ATI already runs the Manila South Harbor, ICTSI operates the Manila International Container Terminal, the country’s largest, while HCPTI owns the Manila Harbour Centre, a private port. 

According to the official, the agency would open the submitted bids on January 28 and will award the contract by end of March this year.

Last year, Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co. decided to put up its second shipyard inside Phividec’s 441.8-hectare property. Worth about $1.9 billion, the shipyard is larger than Hanjin’s first local facility in Subic Bay Freeport.

The MCT has already three regular callers including Maersk, the Magsaysay-owned National Marine Corp. and Lorenzo Shipping Corp.

In April 2004, just three days after it was inaugurated by President Arroyo, the terminal was barred from accepting local and international cargoes by the Misamis Oriental Regional Trial Court.

Oro Port Cargo Handling Services, the cargo-handling operator of Philippine Ports Authority-owned Cagayan de Oro Port, convinced the court that it has an exclusive contract to handle shipments in and out of Cagayan de Oro, which covers the area to be served by the MCT.

But in early 2006, the court lifted its order.

While it allowed MCT to begin commercial operations, the terminal’s marketability to shipping companies has been tarnished.

Besides having two gantry cranes and four rubber-tired gantries, the terminal can accomodate vessels, which can carry up to 150 twenty-foot metal containers. 

The terminal’s total handling capacity of 270,000 TEUs per year but it has provisions for expansion to accommodate larger ships and container yards.

Maersk, 4 other firms submit bids to operate Mindanao container port

A GOVERNMENT-owned industrial estate announced that several companies have filed their respective bids to manage the Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT), perhaps the most modern in the area.

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