Harbor Co News

The South Australian government expects strong bidder interest in its planned $120 million sale of the state's main ports, but the privatization is facing a political storm. The planned trade sale of the South Australian Ports Corporation has agitated a range of groups, from influential grain growers to the militant dockers union and farmers and tourism operators on the Kangaroo Island resort. The government has seen strong level of interest in the ports at Port Adelaide, Port Lincoln, Port Giles, Thevanard, Klein Point, Wallaroo, and Port Pirie. Hutchison Whampoa, Infrastructure investment group Infratil Australia Ltd., graingrower group South Australian Cooperative Bulk Handling (SACBH), P&O Ports, transport group Toll Holdings Ltd., and Mersey Docks & Harbor Co.

Mersey Docks and Harbor Co. is investing 8.8 million pounds in the South African Capespan Group's fruit terminals. Mersey Docks -- Britain's second largest port group -- said it was buying half the equity in Capespan's terminal operations at the ports of Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Maputo in Mozambique. "Mersey Docks will gain from being actively involved in the export of all South African fresh produce, not just to the UK through the port of Sheerness but to all corners of the globe," Mersey Docks chief executive Peter Jones said. Mersey Docks and Capespan have already collaborated on a 35 million pound fresh produce terminal opened in Sheerness in 1999. - (Reuters)

Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. would directly hold about 45 percent, not 65 percent, of the phase three of the Yantian container port project in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, a Hutchison official said on Thursday. She added that Hutchison has a majority stake in a foreign entity that would hold a 65 percent stake in the project. Through the investment entity, Hutchison would hold an "effective 45 percent", the official said. Officials at Hutchison's China partner Yantian Harbour Group said on Wednesday that China had allowed Hutchison to take a 65 percent stake in the project, while Yantian Harbour would hold the remaining 35 percent.

Mozambique has awarded a British consortium a management contract for its Maputo port, including a 15-year lease, according to the British High Commission. Officials said a consortium headed by the British Mersey Docks and Harbor Co. - which runs the port of Liverpool - had won the contract, which allows for the private management of the port. The agreement will reportedly lead to $50 million investment in revamping the port, though it wasn't immediately clear how this would be financed.