PSA buys into Great Yarmouth

The global port operator has taken a 60% share in a joint venture with International Port Holdings (Jersey), to develop a £30m ($60m) shortsea container terminal at the east coast UK port.

The initial phase of a 200 metre quay and 12 hectare yard will have the capacity to handle 250,000 teu a year, and a second phase will double this.

Alistair Baillie, chairman and founder of International Port Holdings (IPH) and former chief operating officer of P&O Ports, said the terminal would be multi-user. The first fully operational berth would be available within 18 months, he added.

A €75m ($101m) construction contract has been awarded to a joint venture of Van Oord UK and Edmund Nuttall, for the outer harbour development and other works.

Eddie Freeman, former managing director of Humber Sea Terminal at North Killingholme, has been appointed chief executive of Great Yarmouth Port Company, a subsidiary of IPH.

In parallel with the PSA announcement, it was announced that private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners had acquired 100% of IPH, while IPH itself had acquired the existing port assets at Great Yarmouth.

The Yarmouth project has been criticised heavily because £18m ($36m) of public funding is going towards the new outer harbour.