DPI to manage Kochi/Cochin
Dubai Ports International, the overseas management arm of Dubai Ports Authority (DPA) offered to share a staggering 33.3% of total revenue with the Indian government when bidding for a concession to run a major new transhipment facility at the port of Kochi/Cochin. Only two other companies bid: the IL& FS Punj Lloyd consortium, which includes Westport Malaysia as operator offered a paltry 10.123%, while the Maersk bid was disqualified since it merely indicated an interest in bidding, but requested more time to do so.
Both P&O Ports and the Adani Group had also sought a deadline extension, but this was refused, prompting them to drop out of the contest.
Others similarly declining to bid were PSA, ICTSI, ACT Shipping, ZIM, L&T and Associated Container Terminal.
The Indian government has tried four times in the last ten years to get this $441.98m project off the ground. In a previous tender, Maersk and CSX World Terminals had entered bids that were considered to be far too low, whilst also requesting unacceptable conditions, resulting in the collapse of the process.
If the DPI bid is approved, the company will take charge of the Rajiv Gandhi container terminal for the next ten years, during which time it will have to grow the business to at least 400,000TEU/year. If this is not achieved by the eighth year, the concession will effectively be annulled, since part of the concession agreement is that within ten years, container handling will have to be switched to a new transhipment terminal on either Vallapardam or Puthuvypean islands, with construction scheduled to take no more than two years.
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