DCT concession will favour independents

…but won’t exclude players with shipping line links Alan Peat EXPLICIT PREFERENCE will be given to independent operators in the concessioning of the Durban Container Terminal, says Department of Public Enterprises director of parastatal restructuring, Richard Goode. But he rather contradicted that by adding that - in the selection process - the scores allocated to different aspects of the concession would not be weighted in favour of companies that have no association with shipping lines. He suggested it would be a fair process and it would be up to companies associated with shipping lines to demonstrate their impartiality. At the same time, any exclusion of operators with shipping links is considered a bit of a dicey argument by knowledgeable observers, who point to most of the international terminal operators which have shipping line connections operating as being stand-alone business units. Of the international applicants who are speculated to be likely to bid for the concession, at least two have links to shipping lines. One is APM Terminals, a subsidiary of the AP Moller Group. In this case, the parent company has described its operation as being both sea carrier and terminal operator - which would certainly seem to suggest some sort of link. But APM has not been accused so far of showing any sort of preference to its shipping line sister. The other is P&O Ports - where the link between terminal operator and shipping line is very distant. It is a subsidiary of the UK-based PON - which also has a stake in Nedlloyd. But P&O Ports has always termed itself a “common user facility” - independent of the group shipping interests, and with only 10% of its business coming from P&O Nedlloyd. Indeed, there is a strong market rumour that there is likely to be some sort of change in ownership of P&O Ports before year-end to overcome the problem of the perception of a P&O link-up. Although only speculation at this time, observers have named four other companies which might be bidding for the DCT concession. Although not confirmed at this stage, the names which have been whispered to FTW are: PSA - the Singapore port authority; HIT - the Chinese-based Hutchison operation; the US terminal operators, CFX; and also the local company, Bidvest.