The M580/I80 Marine Highway Project is funded through DOT/MARAD and the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. The $13.5 million funding for the Port of Stockton is designed to create jobs and economic benefits, both locally and regionally. Both ports, working together, have determined that given the facilities in place at the Port of Stockton, Phase 1 of the project from the Port of Oakland to the Port of Stockton would be implemented first. The funding for the Port of Stockton will be used to procure (2) two 140-ton mobile harbor cranes, dockside improvements in the form of demolition projects to enhance operational efficiencies, rail extension completing an on-dock and off-dock rail loop system, and a near-dock rail served container yard. In addition, the Ports of Oakland, Stockton and West Sacramento, in concert with San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, will be providing $3.2 million dollars collectively to purchase a minimum of one barge (preferably two) to support the M580/I80 Marine Highway Project.  The primary goal of the RFP is to establish a true public private partnership, resulting in a privately financed for-profit business not requiring on-going monetary subsidies from governmental or public agencies. The resultant outcome will be a Management/License Agreement between the selected Respondent and the Port of Stockton as part of the Phase 1 Marine Highway Project.

This RFP is Phase I of a two-phase development. Phase II will incorporate the Port of West Sacramento. The Port of West Sacramento has secured $8.5 million dollars to procure a 120-ton mobile harbor crane and construct a new warehouse supporting the project. Insofar as the M580/I80 Marine Highway Project is a phased program and recognizing that the ports of Stockton and West Sacramento have differences including, but not limited to, property design, operational management and methods of governances, the ports agree in principal to finding a company that brings the greatest number of assets and qualification further identified below, but that each port has its own distinct characteristics that would have to be addressed individually.

The project’s goal as defined by the Department of Transportation and the U.S. Maritime Administration is to have inaugural service established between the Port of Stockton and terminal operator(s) at the Port of Oakland. It is not incumbent of the Respondent to bundle the Request for Proposals for both inland ports at this time. This Request for Proposal is to assist the ports of Stockton and West Sacramento in selecting a qualified and experienced logistics management company with the greatest number of deliverables in the aforementioned phased sequence. The Respondent, with the Port of Stockton providing general assistance and oversight, will be directly responsible for overseeing all requisite and essential key components of the M580/I80 Marine Highway Project that will provide the greatest opportunity for success.

Details of the Port of Stockton’s RFP can be reviewed on the Port of Stockton’s Web site: www.portofstockton.com, or by contacting Port of Stockton Deputy Port Director Mark Tollini at 209-949-0246. The Port of West Sacramento’s RFP can be found on its Web site: www.portofwestsac.com, or by contacting Port of West Sacramento Port Manager Mike Luken at 916-617-4881.

The primary need for a multimodal logistics company is to enhance the Port of Stockton’s and the Port of West Sacramento’s omni-modal system with an intermodal system that will allow the ports to bring previously under-utilized cargo handling capabilities into its operational matrix. The focus of the M580/I80 Marine Highway Project is to support a Container-on-Barge Marine Highway Service, to increase revenue by increasing the movement of goods through the Port of Stockton during Phase 1 and to increase agricultural goods movements through the Port of Oakland. The ports of Stockton and West Sacramento offer ample warehousing, distribution and other logistics services that are established to assist the selected Respondent. The selected Respondent will bring to bear all the desired project elements that provide the greatest benefit as determined by the Port of Stockton during Phase 1, as described in greater detail in the Scope of Services section of this RFP. To assist the selected Respondent in launching the M580/I80 Marine Highway Service, the ports of Stockton and West Sacramento along with its project partners will collaborate in providing the acquisition of a barge or barges suitable to the project. The ports also will provide financial incentives to the Respondents on a contract basis for the benefit of the M580/I80 Marine Highway Project. This financial incentive will be in addition to other Port of Stockton/Port of West Sacramento financial incentives as described in greater detail in the Financial Incentives section of this RFP and in conformance with the covenants contained in ARRA/TIGER Grant Award Document.

About the Port of Stockton

The port is an international 35-foot deep-water port with secured gates that are open 24/7. It has more than 2000 acres for import/export cargoes such as containers, steel, wind energy, ro/ro and heavy lift/project cargo, as well as warehousing, refrigeration, cold storage and distribution centers. It has seven million square feet of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture-approved storage. The port is close to Interstates 5 and 80 and is serviced by the BNSF and UP railroads that can carry cargo directly to the port from locations outside California. Also, the newly developed Marine Highway barge service will facilitate the easy movement of ocean-bound containers to Oakland for shipping. The port is located in Foreign Trade Zone #231.

About the Port of West Sacramento

Located at the Intersection of Interstate 80 and Interstate 5, the Port of West Sacramento is a bulk-commodity port specializing in the import and export of bulk agricultural- and construction-related products. The port has more than 480 acres of maritime properties and 700,000 square feet of enclosed storage located along the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel and is serviced by the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads. The port is part of the West Sacramento State Enterprise Zone and Foreign Trade Zone #143. The Marine Highway Barge service will complement existing international shipments of goods and cargo from the Sacramento Valley.

The unit at DPW allows containers filled with iron ore to be lifted and tipped into the hold of a vessel. The containers are handled within the port, by rail and at the mine with standard container handling equipment such as straddles and reach stackers. The project has allowed IMX to export its product quickly with low capital investment whilst meeting all the strict environmental requirements and has allowed DP World to develop new business.

Having designed rotators for many applications for over 30 years RAM has a wealth of experience in this field. Requests of this type of bulk commodity tipping spreader have been fielded regularly by RAM founder Robert Mills with the first design being developed over 20 years ago in conjunction with Liverpool University. It has only been with the commodity boom in Australia with many junior mining companies looking for ways to get their product to market quickly that this new variation on an existing theme has allowed RAM to deliver three units of its new bulk handling spreader – the RAM REVOLVER

Despite a doubling of domestic coal production over the past decade, it has not kept up with soaring demand. As a result, China’s coal imports increased 30 % last year, and as coal prices surged, the value of coal imports rose 60 %. Despite the rapid growth, coal imports in 2010 reached 170 million tons which only accounts for 5 % of China’s total energy consumption. Although coal production is a minor aspect of the Chinese economy, it has profound global impacts. China is now the world’s second-largest coal importer after Japan, and during 2000–2008 China accounted for about 75 % of growth in global coal demand. Import growth was especially high in 2008–2009, when demand for coal outside Asia contracted sharply due to the global recession. Coal provides about 70 % of China’s primary energy consumption, and crude oil about 18 %. The volume of China’s crude oil imports
increased 17 % last year, accounting for 7 % of China’s total energy consumption.

The port has two mechanised berths. MPSEZ aims to build another two in the next five years. The port has a capacity of 50 million tonnes. It is using 20 million tonnes at present. “At present, Abbot Port can handle 50 million tonnes coal. We plan to expand it to 80 million tonnes in five years. Besides other cargo, the port will handle coal from Adani’s own mines,” said B Ravi, chief financial officer (CFO), MPSEZ. In August last year, Adani had bought Linc Energy’s coal mines in Queensland for about $2.7 billion. Adani plans to fund the deal through debt and sale of some equity in MPSEZ. The company expects revenues from port operations to nearly triple toA$ 305 million (Rs 1,470 crore) by 2016 from A$ 110 million in 2011. “We aspire to expand globally and are in search of right business opportunities. Abbot Point is our contribution to India’s increasing global ambition,” said Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani. In the past 10 years, the asset base of MPSEZ has risen from $100 million to $3 billion. The group has a cargo handling capacity of above 200 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) as against 2.5 MTPA in 2001. On why Australia has become a favourite place for buying energy assets, CFO Ravi said, “The Australian government, which was earlier conservative, opened up to privatisation of energy assets a couple of years ago.” He said domestic power companies, which had big expansion plans, were looking to buy coal mines abroad to make up for the shortfall in domestic supply. Imports of coal to produce power rose 33 per cent to 65.7 million tonnes in the year ended March 31.