Mexico launches Coatzacoalcos port environmental impact tender

Mexican port authorities are set to award an environmental impact statement (EIS) contract to clear the path for tendering a new container terminal at Coatzacoalcos port in Veracruz state.

The terminal is part of the US$1bn Tehuantepec isthmus rail corridor, which will transform the isthmus into a logistics hub by linking Coatzacoalcos with Salinas Cruz port in Oaxaca state via a 300km rail line. 

According to the tender documents, the EIS contract involves updates to environmental authorization permits so works can begin at the Gavilán Allende land perimeter on the northeastern side of Coatzacoalcos’s coast. 

The area, which is in front of the Pajaritos lagoon, was donated by state-owned oil company Pemex to the Coatzacoalcos port authority (API Coatzacoalcos) in 2019 to build the terminal, local media reported. 

However, required works also include permit processing for the port’s rail connection and dredging works at the lagoon where a 300m dock will be built. Plans to build the terminal date back to 2008, when the authority published an analysis about the required infrastructure at the port. 

API Coatzacoalcos invited four national companies to participate in the restricted EIS tender. 

Proposals were scheduled to be presented on February 11, but the authority has still not uploaded the documents to procurement site Compranet. A winner is planned to be picked on February 16 and works should start two days later. The deadline for completion is April 18. 

UPCOMING TENDER

A tender for the terminal will be published during the first quarter of 2021, API Coatzacoalcos director Antonio Luna said during a press conference in November. 

Investment will come from the private sector, although an amount has not yet been determined, he said. 

"We are in the second stage of development of Pajaritos and a container terminal of 45-60ha will be built during the third stage," Luna said. 

He also mentioned that navy ministry Semar, which recently became Mexico’s top port authority, will carry out the dredging works at the Coatzacoalcos and Pajaritos ports to reach a depth of 16m. Current depth at both ports is 14m. 

Eduardo Esteban Romero Fong, general development and strategic coordinator at the Tehuantepec isthmus corridor project’s administrative agency (CIIT), said at the end of November that the Coatzacoalcos port would receive around 1bn pesos (US$50mn) from the federal government. That investment does not include private capital. 

He also said CIIT was building a port and that, so far, the government had allocated some 319mn pesos to the project.