THE tender to operate the Karachi Port Trust's (KPT) deepwater terminal is to be awarded in March, group general manager for planning and development Jamshaid Zaidi told The News International.

Currently the port trust has short-listed four parties, which have two months to submit their bids/proposals before the contract is awarded in March.

The short-listed parties include the usual suspects; Singapore's PSA International, Hong Kong's Hutchison Port Holdings, UAE's Dubai Ports World and Danish shipping giant Maersk-APM.

The Pakistani port group will invest US$350 million into the terminal, while the contract winner will be required to cough up $200 million for the initial phase of the terminal's development.

This first phase will see the development of four berths and a 1.5 kilometre quay wall, enabling it to cater to the super post panamax class vessels.

For the second phase KPT will inject a further $1.08 billion into the terminal, where a further six berths will be added and the quay wall will be expanded to 3.75 kilometres.