Mexican President Felipe Calderón officially announced the bidding for the Punta Colonet multimodal project today, according to a Ministry of Communications and Transportation (Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes) press release.  The project will be located about 86 miles south of Ensenada, Baja California.

The project includes the construction of new port facilities, container terminals, a desalination plant, highway improvements, and 186 miles of rail lines, which will link Punta Colonet to the United States.  According to a report in today’s El Financiero, possible rail routes may run through Mexicali, Yuma, Nogales, or El Paso, but the bid terms will allow the concession winner to determine the route.  Once completed, the port is expected to double Mexico’s capacity for the handling of shipping containers to six milliion containers per year. 

The report said that the Punta Colonet port will be situated on approximately 6,700 acres, 205 of which are public lands owned by the government and 6,425 of which are territorial sea beds.  The precise boundaries of the project are set forth in the Official Federal Daily (Diario Oficial de la Federación) dated December 18, 2006.

Construction and operation of the project is expected to generate 83,000 jobs, 24,000 during construction and 59,000 during operation, and US$500 million in annual revenue.  Work is anticipated to commence in 2009 end by 2013 or 2014. 

Bid terms will be published next week, with Mexican development bank Banobras serving as bidding agent.

The report said the government also plans to allow construction of a new airport in Mesa de Tigre, Ensenada, with cargo capabilities to serve Punta Colonet. The airport will require private investment of approximately US$224 million.

The call for bids for the Punta Colonet project has been delayed several times due to the project’s complexity and land disputes with mining company Grupo Minero Lobos (GML), which had a concession to develop approximately 74,000 acres of coastline for mining projects, according to a report in Business News Americas (BNA).  Although the government revoked GML’s concession on July 18, 2007, the revocation has not been published in the Official Federal Daily, as required by Mexican law to consummate official invalidation of a concession, according to the BNA report.  The BNA report said GML still claims rights to the land.

As Mexico Law Blog reported on July 31, 2008, companies expected to submit bids for the Punto Colonet concessions include A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, Dubai Ports World, Ferromex, Hutchison Port Holdings, MTC Holdings, Pacer Stacktrain México, and Union Pacific México.  The bidding companies will likely form consortiums, given the project’s magnitude.

Empresas ICA, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE: ICA) announced that it won two construction contracts worth a total of approximately US$63.1 million, according to a Bloomberg report today.  The report said the contracts are to build a convention center in central Mexico and renovate a runway at Mexico City’s airport. 

Empresas ICA is Mexico’s largest construction company and a major competitor of Carlos Slim’s Carso Infraestructura y Construccion, S.A.B. (CICSA).  It is headed by Chief Executive Officer Jose Luis Guerrero, who holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Empresas ICA was founded by a group of Mexican engineers in 1947 as Mexico boomed after World War II.  Some analysts have said that Empresas ICA’s long and successful track record in Mexican infrastructure give it an advantage over its less experienced competitors.  Keep an eye out for ICA as the Mexican government issues bid awards for infrastructure projects as part of its 2007-2012 National Infrastructure Program.

According to a Bloomberg report today, Empresas ICA, S.A.B. (NYSE: ICA) won a $148 million contract in June over Carlos Slim’s Carso Infraestructura y Construccion, S.A.B. to finish widening the 201-mile road from Mexico City to Tuxpan, a port city in the Veracruz state. The contract is part of President Felipe Calderon’s $250 billion plan to improve Mexican infrastructure, according to the report.

The bidding terms for the Punta Colonet port concession near Ensenada will be released at the end of August, according to a report in today’s El Financiero.  José Rubio Soto, coordinator of the project for the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (Secretaria de Comunicacion y Transporte – SCT) said that the competition will be open to both Mexican and foreign companies. 

Once constructed, the port is initially expected to receive approximately 2 million containers of goods per year, with the capacity to receive up to 9 million containers per year.  Some analysts have projected that the port will be the third-largest in the world, after Singapore and Hong Kong.

Companies expected to submit bids for the concession include APM Terminal/Maersk Lines, Dubai Ports World, Ferromex, Hutchison Port Holdings, MTC Holdings, Pacer Stacktrain México, and Union Pacific México.  The bidding companies will likely form consortiums, given the project’s magnitude.