Colombia’s Aguadulce Industrial Port has been undergoing major changes for more than a decade, helping make Buenaventura, on the Pacific Coast, one of the country’s busiest trading zones.
Buenaventura is now Colombia’s second complex for the quantity of goods moved annually – 4.25 million tons in the first quarter of this year, according to the Transportation Ministry. Sociedad Portuaria Industrial Aguadulce, also known by its acronym, SPIA, is a joint venture between the Port of Singapore Authority and International Container Terminal Service (ICTSI), based in the Philippines, each with a 49.8% share.
The port – built during the previous decade, with a capacity to move 512,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), the measurement used for container transport – is now set for phase two following the successful closing in January of a $332-million project financing to back its expansion.
The transaction, which wins Port Financing of the Year, comprises a 7-year term loan and a letter of credit facility. BBVA Colombia, Scotiabank, ING Capital, Santander, and Clifford Capital were mandated lead arrangers on the financing which included several innovative features, including an exchange rate hedge as well as a fiduciary mechanism to manage project cash flow in order to mitigate risk.
The deal also sets out to optimize the capital structure of the Company by repaying part of a shareholder loan. The expansion plan also intends to reduce the port’s carbon emissions by 50% by 2030.
The project has been through numerous iterations since plans were initially presented in1996. ICTSI acquired its stake in 2007 and construction began in 2013 with the port opening business three years later and the first phase finished in 2019. The consortium holds the concession until 2037.
The expansion plan will see capacity increase by over 50% to 784,000 TEU by 2026. It will include a 300-meter expansion of the existing berth, extending it to 900 meters, adding two new ship-to-shore container cranes, a new access trestle and yard expansion. The expansion is forecast to improve SPIA’s already impressive efficiency. The terminal’s handling charges are 25% lower than those in Cartagena, Colombia’s largest port complex.
Aguadulce is located close to Colombia’s principal production centers – Bogotá, Cali and Medellín – that account for 63 percent of the country’s export offerings and a whooping 87 percent of imports. It is strategically located as trade with China increases. Colombia exported $1.32 billion to China in the first six months of this year, up from $1.2 billion in the same period last year. It imported $7 billion, up from $6.6 billion between January and June 2023.