Five bids are in. The port director wants the winner, which would handle the port's container trade, to start work by fall.
By STEVE HUETTEL
Published May 10, 2003
TAMPA - With five proposals on the table, officials at the Port of Tampa expect to select a company in the next few weeks to expand Tampa's anemic container cargo trade.
Port director George Williamson said Friday that the companies were some of the nation's major container handlers whose customers include the largest shipping lines in the world.
"You want a player here," Williamson told members of the port's governing board at a workshop. "To be successful in the container business, you need to play with (such lines as) the Maersk Sealands. You need someone with staying power."
Bulk products - fertilizer, phosphate and petroleum fuels - make up about 90 percent of the Tampa port's cargo. But over the last two decades, manufactured goods and many agricultural products have been shipped almost exclusively in 20- and 40-foot-long metal containers.
Port officials for years wrote off the business. Competing with big ports such as Miami and Jacksonville would take too large an investment in huge cranes and other equipment, they said, and Tampa was too far off container shipping routes.
But over the last year Williamson and other officials warmed to the idea. Phosphate is in decline and other cargo hasn't grown significantly, leaving the port more dependent on its other big revenue engine: the cruise business.
And local companies that pay to send containers by truck to and from other ports became increasingly vocal about Tampa's lack of service. Only 6,000 containers move through the port annually, fewer than Miami handles in three days.
The port last year went looking for a partner to operate and help market its container business.
Port officials met with dozens of representatives from container shipping companies and by this week had five bidders:
Tampa Marine Terminals, a partnership between Canadian cargo handler Logistec and A.R. Savage & Son, a longtime Tampa ship agency and freight forwarder. Logistec has annual revenues of $180-million and cargo operations in 28 U.S. and Canadian ports.
Stevedoring Services of America, which bills itself as the world's largest privately held cargo handler and terminal operator. SSA operates 12 container terminals worldwide and its parent, FRS Service Companies, had revenues of about $780-million last year.
Florida Transportation Services, a shipping agent and terminal operator with facilities in Fort Lauderdale and Texas.
The Pasha Group, which calls itself the third-largest independent terminal operator on the West Coast. Pasha had sales of $400-million last year.
Ceres Terminals, a cargo handler and terminal operator in the United States, Canada and Europe. Ceres is owned by NYK Lines, a large Japanese shipping line with more than $8-billion in annual revenues.
Each company proposed taking over as well the handling of all the port's general cargo, such as steel and lumber, and its growing automobile imports from Mexico.
That work now is done by Tampa Bay International Terminals, a nonprofit formed in 1989 when the port bought out three private cargo terminals for about $12-million.
Williamson told board members they would receive next week a side-by-side comparison of what each bidder was offering in terms of equipment, splitting revenues and marketing the port.
The report will likely show two or three top proposals, he said. Staff will negotiate final deals with those companies, Williamson said, then recommend one within a few weeks. He wants the winner to start work by this fall.
