Maersk to invest $ 900 m in Mexico terminal

COPENHAGEN (Reuters): The ports arm of Danish shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk plans to invest $900 million in a new container facility at Mexico’s port of Lazaro Cardenas, the company said on Thursday.

The Lazaro Cardenas port authority chose Maersk’s APM Terminals unit as the winner of its deepwater container terminal tender and awarded it a 32-year concession of a greenfield site for the new terminal, APM Terminals said in a statement.The first phase of the project will be completed in 2015 and operations will start in the first quarter of that year, said APM Terminals, which is one of the world’s biggest freight operators with 60 ports and 132 inland facilities in 63 countries.

“The terminal will undergo phased expansion in accordance with provisions stipulated in the concession agreement and driven by commercial market demands,” APM Terminals said. APM Terminals has partnered for the project with Mexican construction company ICA which will have a 5 percent stake, the Danish company said.In Mexico, APM Terminals operates inland services in Ensenada, Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo that focus on inland transport and storage depots.