Israel Ports Development & Assets Company Ltd. (IPC) Ltd. the Ashtrom Properties Ltd. Shapir Civil and Marine Engineering Ltd. consortium signed a contract for the construction of the Haifa Bay port.
The Ashtrom-Shapir consortium won the tender for the construction of the port in October 2014.
The cost of the construction is estimated to be about NIS 3.98 billion. The work to construct the Haifa Bay Port includes extending the main breakwater, building a secondary breakwater, construction of quays, and marine excavation works.
The company is preparing to raise debt to finance the construction of the docks, and received an Aa1 rating with a stable outlook from Midroog. The construction of the Haifa Bay Port and the South Port are among the largest infrastructure projects that Israel has ever seen, and the Israel Ports Authority is promoting them with an investment of billions of shekels. This is in order to compete with the two existing large ports.
Under the project, two new ports will be built - the Bay Port in Haifa, east of the existing port, and the South Port in Ashdod, north of the existing port in Ashdod. Concurrently, the Israel Ports Company is in the midst of a tender for the selection of a global operator which will operate and maintain the ports for a 25 year period.
Four global operators have been pre-qualified to participate in the tender that is expected to be concluded during the first quarter of 2015. The four operators include: TIL, Eurogate, ICTSI and Shanghai International Ports Group.
