Port’s Deal With Citrus Shipper to Generate $1 Million Annually

In a 20-year deal worth $1 million annually to the Port of Hueneme, a major international shipper and the port agreed to build the West Coast’s largest refrigerated dock warehouse to handle citrus exports to the Far East and Australia.

The contract with Cool Carriers Pacific will bring more than 100 additional ships to port each year, a 50% increase. It will also boost port revenues by nearly 25% once the $8-million terminal is completed in 1994.

“Clearly, it’s a significant development for us,” Port Director Anthony J. Taormina said Wednesday. “We’ve never had such an anchored tenant.”

“The port made it very attractive for us to move” out of the Port of Long Beach, company President Gerry Fountain said. “Since we export for Sunkist growers, a lot of whom are in Ventura County and the San Joaquin Valley, this dock will be much more convenient.”

The contract is the second major deal clinched by the Oxnard Harbor District in recent months. Wallenius Lines, which brings in imported cars, signed a guaranteed $1-million annual contract in August that makes the Port of Hueneme its primary West Coast port of entry.

In signing its 20-year agreement, Cool Carriers will leave Long Beach, its chief West Coast port for 22 years. That port primarily handles containerized cargo and lacked refrigerated warehouse space for bulk fruit, which would sit on the dock for up to two days.

“When this port was first conceived in 1937, its primary goal was to provide service to Ventura County’s agricultural community,” Harbor District Commissioner Stan Daily said.

Under the agreement, the district will pay 70% of the warehouse construction costs, with the shipper absorbing the rest. The warehouse, to be built on four acres, will become port property when the contract expires, Taormina said.

Taormina said the warehouse operation would create only a few jobs at the port, but as many as 200 to 300 jobs indirectly throughout the county.

Sunkist Growers plans to ship about 10 million cartons of oranges, lemons and grapefruit through the port to Japan, Australia and other Far East markets. Taormina said those shipments should account for about 62 annual vessel dockings.

Cool Carriers, a subsidiary of a Stockholm, Sweden-based shipping firm, also plans to bring in about 120,000 cartons of Ecuadorean bananas each week for another 52 dockings at the five-berth port. The company guarantees the port a minimum revenue of $850,000 a year, adjusted for inflation annually.

However, Taormina said the contract should generate at least $1 million a year.

The Port of Hueneme, the only deep-water port between Los Angeles and San Francisco, handles about 1% of all goods shipped through California ports. The ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland share 94% of the market, with Hueneme, San Diego, Stockton, Sacramento, Humboldt, San Francisco, Richmond, Redwood City and Alameda scrapping for the remaining trade.

Cool Carriers chose the Ventura County port over two other competitors, the Port of San Diego and a stevedoring company at the Port of Los Angeles, Taormina said.

Its parent company is the world’s largest refrigerated shipping operator, generating $300 million last year through the 72 vessels under its management.

Fountain said Cool Carriers is exploring the possibility of importing another 80,000 tons of frozen Australia beef through the Port of Hueneme. The beef is now shipped into Philadelphia.

“There’s some logistics to work out since the Hueneme facility will be chilled and not deep frozen,” said Fountain, who toured sites for a freezer terminal in Oxnard on Wednesday afternoon. “If the USDA requirements and rail costs to Midwestern and Eastern markets work out, the entire Australian shipment would come” to the Port of Hueneme.