AMERICAS • COLOMBIA Aguadulce terminal opens for business
The port of Aguadulce in Buenaventura, considered the most modern in Colombia, was officially inaugurated on March 8, by President Juan Manuel Santos.
‘It is very important to have dreams and is more satisfying when they become reality,’ said the Colombian President. ‘What we are doing today to inaugurate this port is part of that dream.’ He also praised the terminal’s investors as having been ‘visionaries’ since the port had opened ‘at the best [possible] moment, with the greatest potential and the support given from the Government, which obeys the policy of attracting foreign capital.’
Located in Buenaventura on the Pacific coast of Colombia, the new port is run by Sociedad Puerto Industrial Aguadulce (SPIA), a joint venture between PSA International and ICTSI (International Container Terminal Services Inc). Operations began with the arrival of a first container vessel, MSC Sasha, in late 2016.
Since then the port has enjoyed a strong start as MSC already calls weekly with
MSC Nasha making maiden call at SPIA-Aguadulce
9,000teu vessels and has added a regional MSC feeder service, calling Balboa, Buenaventura and Puerto Bolivar in Ecuador. Vessel productivity after only eight weeks consistently exceeds 80 moves/per hour.
The $500m project is aimed at serving mega container vessels with capacity of up to 18,000teu. In its first phase it has annual capacity of 550,000teu with four super post-Panamax cranes installed along a 600mtr quay with 14.5mtr draught, plus 13ha of yard. It also features a separate bulk terminal with capacity of 2m tonnes a year, operated in cooperation with Grupo Argos.
Some 100,000sq mtr of warehousing provides storage facilities for Colombian
Commercial diving for off shore platforms
equipment for INVENAR, Shell, Anadarko, Petrobras and Repsol,’ relates Seeport gm Rodrigo Barraza.
Serport works on oceanography research
Serport was founded in 1996 to specialise in commercial diving, and opened its first office in Santa Marta. Five years later it opened a new office in Cartagena, and more recently has become the first Colombian company to own and work with Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs).
In 2011, the company ‘entered the market for oceanography campaigns, by providing marine research platforms and specialised oceanography research
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Since then Serport has grown to become ‘a benchmark in the Caribbean region in underwater surveys and maintenance of all
types of submarine structures,’ he adds.
Serport also began constructing barges, he adds, and is now in the process of adding two new units to an existing fleet of 18 barges.
The company prides itself on offering services in an agile, safe and flexible manner, tailored to each particular situation. Resources include an in- house team of almost 200 experts, certified equipment and extensive
The complexity of the operation called for use of a wide range of equipment, such as the Raleigh B OSV, with an A-frame, a winch and a 25-tonne crane. Serport also deployed a new double-hulled barge with winch and A-frame, deck barge, crew boat, fast boat and diving boat with two hyperbaric chambers, several compressors and 18 surface-supplied and SCUBA diving systems, among other tools and materials.
network of contacts throught the maritime industry.
‘Our most recent operation involved the replacement of several subsea and floating hose strings of one of Ecopetrol´s CALM terminals in Coveñas,’ explains Barraza. The operation took several weeks of careful planning, and over 15 days of intense, 24-hour field work, which demanded the coordination of a very diverse team of over 65 collaborators.
coffee and sugar exporters and is equipped with latest quality and security control measures, which have been praised by the all-mighty Colombia’s National Federation of Coffee Growers. ‘We have been very pleased by the commercial response by the shippers,’ comments Enno Koll, PSA’s head of Latin America.
SPIA-Aguadulce, which owns the land with a 30 year-concession for use of the waters, has also built a 21km access road from Buenaventura costing $80m that has set new standards in cargo security by assuring drivers of direct and uncongested access to the terminal. It also owns over 140ha of land next to the road, where logistics facilities are planned.
Seatrade Maritime Review • Quarterly Issue 2 • June 2017 73
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