the Harbour Authority of Barcelona grants to BEST an extension 15-year-old of the concession to the Catalunya Terminal



In these weeks in Italy, in absence of specific regulations, it is discussed about the terms of I renew of the concessions of harbour state property areas and in particular of the duration of the extension of these contracts. In these days the minister of Infrastructures and the Transports, Graziano Delrio, has promised that soon the regulations will be ready, attended until from the launch of the enforced law on the ports happened in 1994.

The legislative clarification was sped up by the president of the Harbour Authority of Genoa, Luigi Merlo, having had the agency to pronounce himself on requests of delay of concessions under presentation by some terminalisti. Up to now in the Italian ports such decisions are assumed independently by every Harbour Authority. One of the last ones in time order is that deciding at the beginning of this month from the harbour agency of Trieste that has made official renews for a duration 50-year-old of the marine state property concession to the SIOT, society that manages the oil terminal in which the activities of crude oil drainage happen that successively is forwarded towards Centro Europa through the Transalpine Oil pipe-line ( of the 3 settembre.2015). To Genoa, meantime, the group Joints has introduced request of extension 40-60-year-old of the expiration of the concession through which work terminalistiche activities in the port of the capital of Liguria in the field of the goods several, the rotabili and the system one ( of the 16 settembre.2015)

Terms of I renew that, regarding the duration, they appear similar in the Spain neighbor, where last year the maximum duration of the harbour concessions is extended by 35 to 50 years ( on 7 July 2014). This does not imply that it renews are granted for periods of time of inferior duration, as has happened today to Barcelona where the Harbour Authority has announced to have deliberate an extension of the duration 15-year-old of the concession in vigor with the Barcelona Europe South Terminal (BEST), society that is controlled with 80% of the vital one from the group Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) of Hong Kong and is participated by the Spanish Grupo Mestre and that it manages the Terminal Catalunya (TERCAT) to the Muelle Prat of the Catalan harbour port of call where enlivens container.

The Spanish agency has explained that initially I renew era come to an agreement for a period 30-year-old, but has specified that the demand for delay introduced from Catalunya Terminal is based in December on investments previewed in the industrial plan of management of approved of terminal 2008, that they exceeded of beyond 120 million euros the investments previewed from the initial project of 2006 with which the company had won the contest for the management of the terminal. The Harbour Authority of Barcelona has remembered that these investments are faces to realize the automation of all the terminal, in particular through the automated means installation for handling of the container and the acquisition of eight new cranes. The agency has specified that the investment total of the BEST piles to 580 million euros.