It was a good year at the port, but tenants still expense-shy

It's been a good year for Port Manatee, but more business growth at Manatee County's deepwater port is needed before it and its tenants can claim they have a secure book of business.

This week, the port's executive director, Carlos Buqueras, released revised numbers for the recently ended fiscal year that show a big uptick in container volume. For 2014-2015, container traffic was up 83 percent at the port compared with the previous 12 months. In all, the port's docks saw 25,778 20-foot-equivalent container units, or TEUs, on-loaded and off-loaded from ships tied up at its berths.

Imports totaled 15,565 TEUs, up 65 percent. Exports jumped 119 percent to 10,213 TEUs.

A walk on the docks at the port and near its warehouses reveals that the bulk of those containers are used by Fresh Del Monte. The company brings fruit in from South and Central America, then processes and repackages it for distribution from its Port Manatee facility.

Buqueras credited new port client World Direct Shipping for much of the increase beyond the refrigerated fruit containers.

The company ships a variety of dry goods between the port and the Mexican port of Coatzacoalcos on a weekly basis.

Also getting a big boost in business at the port this year were fuel distributor TransMontaigne and stevedore Gulf Coast Bulk.

TransMontaigne is, according to Buqueras, sending about 60 tanker trucks out of the port daily in its new role as an official distributor of Southwest Florida's RaceTrac stations.

Gulf Coast Bulk both helped its own business this year as well as the port's when it brought Mosaic's phosphate shipping and warehousing business back to the port.

The port lost that commodity in 2013, as well as approximately $1 million in annual revenue, in 2014 when the fertilizer giant pulled its business from Port Manatee bulk commodity handler Kinder Morgan. The business loss compelled the port to institute partial layoffs of 54 port employees for the better part of a year.

Those layoffs ended in the fall of 2014.

With all this good business news as a counterpoint background last week, Kinder Morgan's Florida commercial manager, Jack Gale, put the spotlight on his company's recent struggles.

With six acres, four warehouses and berth space for two Panamax-sized cargo ships, Kinder Morgan has huge capacity for bringing bulk goods to the port. But since it lost its Mosaic business, the company has had a hard time keeping its facilities busy.

"Right now we are struggling to attract a new anchor tenant," Gale said. "We don't have many natural resources in Florida outside sunshine and phosphate."

Kinder Morgan is a major operator in the energy business elsewhere in the nation. But at Port Manatee, it is best positioned in the bulk cargo sector.

It's currently handling salt, wet ash and ammonium sulfate cargos and is pursuing several other bulk projects. Gale said the company's port facility will be working with salt maker Morton in the coming year.

On the port's side of the business equation, port sales staff are traveling the Americas and parts of Europe to bring more tenants and imports and exports to Port Manatee.

Several Spanish businesses are expected to set up offices and, potentially, manufacturing or shipping operations at the port.

A big challenge for the coming year, say port tenants, will be keeping the cost of doing business at Port Manatee low.

Port officials may institute a new tariff for the new year to cover a unified security plan, something some tenants say will make their operations more expensive.

"It's putting costs on top of already high costs at the port," said Chris Shiels, general manager of port logistics company GearBulk.

For its part, the port markets itself as one of the more affordable ports in the state. Buqueras said most of the charges Port Manatee levels on its tenants are pass-through expenses, such as those for electrical service and security.

As for the rest of it, he said he'll always work with a tenant.

"The port is extremely competitive and affordable due to a flexibility in providing competitive pricing to customers on a contractual basis," Buqueras said.

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "It was a good year at the port, but tenants still expense-shy ."