COSCO to continue managing the Zaragoza Plaza rail terminal
COSCO Shipping Ports Spain (CSP Spain) will maintain control of the Zaragoza Plaza rail terminal, in northwestern Spain, which the company has been managing since 2013. COSCO’s subsidiary was competing against Samca, a Spanish mining company, to obtain the contract for the management of the terminal for the next six years.
The tender was launched by Spanish infrastructure manager Adif and has not been officially assigned to CSP Spain yet. However, as Spanish newspaper El Mercantil mentioned, CSP Spain scored a higher technical valuation than Samca, 92 to 70,91. COSCO’s subsidiary did better than its opponent under the categories concerning initiatives for non-cranable semi-trailers and carbon footprint impact.
CSP Spain’s offer amounted to over 1,6 million euros. It included 396,097 euros of fixed annual income for the first two years, which would then rise to 407,979 in the third and to 420,219 in the fourth. One of the prerequisites for getting the contract to manage the Zaragoza Plaza was the commitment to a one-million-euro investment to upgrade the gantry crane at the terminal. Moreover, these funds will also be used for the implementation of a Terminal Operating System.
The Zaragoza Plaza rail terminal
The Zaragoza Plaza rail terminal was opened in 2008 and covers a surface of 755,000 square metres, making it, according to the Aragon Plataforma Logistica, the largest cargo terminal in southern Europe. The facility is equipped with 16 tracks suitable for 750-metre freight trains. Moreover, there is an intermodal platform with five additional 750-metre tracks and an extra 600-metre one for container trains. The terminal has been managing privately, by CSP Spain, since 2013. The Zaragoza Plaza plays a key role for COSCO in Spain since it has connections to the ports of Valencia and Bilbao, in which the Chinese giant is a shareholder.
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