Splash247: The rising price of a port concession

Published by Splash247

The price of securing control of strategic port infrastructure is climbing, with competition for scarce gateway assets increasingly requiring operators to combine hefty concession payments with hundreds of millions of dollars of mandatory investment.

A Splash Ports review of concession awards over the past decade shows increasingly large financial commitments, particularly where established gateways, container capacity or long-term control of strategically located infrastructure are involved.

Brazil provides some of the clearest evidence because many of its port leases are awarded on the basis of the highest concession payment.

In 2019, three terminals at Santos and Paranaguá generated combined concession payments of R$148.5m ($37.7m), alongside R$417.2m of planned investment. Another six terminals in Pará auctioned that year raised R$447.9m.

By 2021, Petrobras paid R$558.2m for the 25-year STS08A liquids terminal concession at Santos alone.

Four Brazilian terminal auctions in April 2025 generated R$857.1m in concession payments, while the government said the projects would bring more than R$2bn of investment. That equates to average auction proceeds of more than R$200m per terminal, compared with about R$50m across the three-terminal auction in 2019, although the assets are not directly comparable.

Competition has also extended beyond terminals. The 25-year concession for the access channel at Paranaguá attracted a R$276m concession payment after a competitive auction in October 2025, on top of R$1.22bn of required investment.

The next test will be Tecon Santos 10, the proposed giant container terminal at Brazil’s largest port. Current government modelling envisages a 25-year concession and around R$3.5bn in capital expenditure, with the winner again to be determined by the highest concession payment. Revised tender documentation was published in July.

The same escalation in capital commitments can be seen internationally.

DP World’s new 30-year concession for Jeddah South Container Terminal in 2019 carried an investment commitment of up to $500m. Croatia’s 50-year Rijeka Gateway concession, signed by APM Terminals and ENNA in 2021, has subsequently developed into an investment programme worth hundreds of millions of euros.

In Angola, AD Ports secured a 20-year concession for Luanda’s multipurpose terminal in 2024 and initially committed $251m over its first three years, potentially rising to $379m over the concession term.

Headline valuations at ports are not entirely new. Australia leased the Port of Melbourne for A$9.7bn for 50 years in 2016, demonstrating the premium infrastructure investors were already prepared to pay for mature monopoly-style gateways.

What has changed is the breadth of the market. Governments increasingly expect concessionaires not simply to pay for access, but to finance dredging, automation, larger cranes, deeper berths, rail connections and major capacity expansion.