DP World secures Corpus Christi lease for 1-million-TEU container terminal
DP World and the Port of Corpus Christi signed a lease option agreement on Sept. 29 to develop a container terminal that could eventually handle about 1 million TEUs per year. Corpus Christi presently moves no containers and hopes the terminal will broaden a cargo mix dominated by oil, gas and agricultural products.
Under the agreement, DP World would design, build and operate the terminal on land leased from the port. The port has also secured about 2,000 acres eight to ten miles south of its Inner Harbor for an inland port that could link to three Class I railroads and multiple interstate highways. DP World handles roughly 10% of global container traffic across more than 60 ports and terminals worldwide.
“We’ve signed a lease option agreement with DP World for a development … of a container terminal in the Port,” Jeffrey Pollack, chief strategy and sustainability officer for the Port of Corpus Christi Authority said.
In 2006, DP World’s bid to acquire British terminal operator P&O sparked a national‑security debate in Congress, leading the company to sell P&O’s U.S. port operations. The Corpus Christi project would be DP World’s first U.S. container terminal development since that episode and its first on the Gulf Coast.
What we know
The Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, has signed a lease option agreement with Dubai-based DP World to develop a container terminal capable of eventually handling about 1 million twenty-foot equivalent units annually, according to a port official.
“We’ve signed a lease option agreement with DP World for a development … of a container terminal in the Port,” Jeffrey Pollack, chief strategy and sustainability officer for the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, told the American Journal of Transportation during the American Association of Port Authorities annual convention in New Orleans on Sept. 29.
DP World is one of the world’s largest terminal operators, handling roughly 10% of global container traffic through more than 60 ports and terminals.
Corpus Christi also recently acquired about 2,000 acres roughly 8 to 10 miles south of its Inner Harbor that port officials envision as an inland port supporting the proposed container terminal.
The deal triggered bipartisan opposition in Congress over national security concerns and ultimately led DP World to divest P&O’s U.S. port operations, according to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee’s Feb. 28, 2006 hearing, “Security of Terminal Operations at U.S. Ports.”