Car terminal in Santos gets back to the era of the great biddings
Valor Econômico 04/13/2009
The lease of the Car Export Terminal (TEV) of the port of Santos, which has already attracted 17 interested parties, established the resumption of the biddings in the large ports of the country. The ingredients surrounding the process increase the expectation of the market in relation to the competition. It is a terminal in the main port of Latin America, in an area of 165 square meters, which may get to 192 square meters after the expansion. The companies interested in exploring the TEV started getting themselves together since March 31, when the notice of the bidding rules for the terminal were published in Official Federal Gazette. Companhia Docas do Estado de São Paulo (Codesp), the port authority of the port of Santos, had registered the sale of 17 bidding rules until last week. There is no guarantee that all companies that have bought the bidding rules will make proposals for the lease of the terminal, which will be bid for the minimum price of R$ 105 million (US$ 45.7 million). But the number shows the interest of people in the business.
The public tender will award the "higher bid with the inversion of the phases of qualification and decision". The winner will be allowed to explore the TEV for 25 years, renewable for an equal term. The purpose of the tender is the exploration of the terminal to operate complete and disassembled vehicles, the so-called CKDs (completely knock-down). The winner will be required to construct an exclusive road access to the TEV. Pursuant to the contract, the winner will not have any obligations in terms of volume of operation of vehicles in the first 12 months, but in the second year it should operate, at least, 182 thousand vehicles, a volume which gradually increases until it gets, in the sixth year, to the ceiling of 300 thousand units a year. In 2008, the TEV operated 114,928 vehicles, with an increase of nearly 2% on the 112,781 of 2007. The terminal has static capacity to store 8,270 vehicles and it can operated 230 vehicles per hour. Among the clients are Volkswagen, Ford, Honda, Fiat and GM, besides the manufacturers of machines like Caterpillar and Komatsu.