Va. Port Authority in talks to lease APM for 20 years

NORFOLK

The Virginia Port Authority is negotiating to lease APM Terminals' new container port in Portsmouth for 20 years, said the head of the firm that runs the state-owned terminals in Hampton Roads.

"Think about what a fantastic opportunity that would be for this port, to be able to bring all the terminals under one umbrella again and compete against the likes of New York and Charleston and Savannah," said Joseph A. Dorto, CEO of Virginia International Terminals, the private, tax-exempt company that operates the port authority's terminals.

The term of the lease is the only detail disclosed about the ongoing talks since they were first reported in August.

Closing the deal is a top priority for 2010, Dorto said. He declined later to give any timetable for the deal's completion. "There's still a lot of work to be done, but it's moving in the right direction."

In a 25-minute, "state-of-the-port" address before about 150 at the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club, Dorto talked about the lingering effects of the worldwide recession, the three proposals by private firms interested in operating the port's terminals and the competition among ports. The talk was sponsored by the Hampton Roads Foreign Commerce Club.

Year-over-year, container volume at the port fell 16 percent - from 2.08 million units in 2008 to 1.75 million last year, Dorto said.

While many port analysts project a 2.4 percent increase in nationwide container volumes this year, that won't even "put a dent in where we were in 2008," he added.

"When we make the statement that the recession is over, hurray, everything is great, that doesn't mean that we're going to be back to the levels that we were at in 2007," Dorto said.

"That just means we might have a better year than we did last year, by 2.4 percent, not even close to where we were at the end of 2007, the beginning of 2008."

Most analysts think volumes probably won't return to pre-recession levels until 2012 or later, he said.

The port's No. 1 priority this year will be a renewed commitment to safety, said Dorto, about a month after a longshoreman was killed Dec. 22 at Norfolk International Terminals - the sixth fatality at the port between 2005 and 2009.

"We have had what I consider to be an unsuccessful last few years where people have been killed on the terminals and that's not acceptable," Dorto said. "That's going to be our No. 1 priority - to make sure that our employees are safe."

Robert McCabe, (757) 446-2327, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com