Vancouver Port Authority Seeks Partners for $2.7 Billion Project

(Bloomberg) -- The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is seeking investment partners to finance the construction and operation of a container terminal expansion that’s been delayed for several years.

The authority began reaching out to investors about a week ago regarding the project, at Roberts Bank in Delta, British Columbia, which may cost as much as C$3.5 billion ($2.7 billion), Chief Executive Officer Robin Silvester said Tuesday in an interview.

“There’s a lot of interest in the market,” Silvester said. “It’s a big project, it’s an expensive project in many ways, but the business case on it works and it’s the only capacity that could be ready to meet Canada’s need.”

The Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Project is slated to have as many as three berths for container ships to support shipping grain, lumber and food from Vancouver.

Shortlist

Assuming every bit of permitted capacity is built elsewhere, the project “is still needed by 2028, 2029, which is the earliest it could be ready,” Silvester said. “There’s just no other capacity that can be ready.”

In 2015, five parties including Abu Dhabi Terminals, Ports America and PSA International were placed on a shortlist to respond to a request for proposal. That process stalled with an environmental review by the federal government.

The authority decided to restart the procurement process to re-assess costs and gauge interest in combining construction and operation of the terminal under a single consortium, Silvester said.

Silvester declined to disclose which investors the port has approached. “It would be a fairly safe bet that we’re talking to the major players internationally,” he said.

Ports and terminals have attracted investment from cash-rich infrastructure and pension funds. In April, an affiliate of Macquarie Group Ltd. agreed to purchase the container terminal business at the Port of Long Beach in California.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net;Natalie Obiko Pearson in Vancouver at npearson7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill

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