How many ports??? Bush says Dubai will operate terminals at six US ports. This article says 21.
UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports
upi.com
MovieGuy has made some calls ... his comments follow:
econbrowser.com
P&O Ports North America has full operational control of at least three major terminals at the Port of Tampa. The Port of Tampa is not identified in the DHS fact sheet. Why not?
P&O Ports North America has full operational control of three or more terminals at the Port of Lake Charles. More, P&O is identified in a corporate news release as the "exclusive freight handler for the Port of Lake Charles, providing terminal operations, stevedoring, log-yard and rail operations." It would appear the P&O is running most of that port's operations. The Port of Lake Charles is not identified in the DHS fact sheet. Why not?
The DHS fact sheet states that "DP World will not, nor will any other terminal operator, control, operate or manage any United States port. DP World will only operate and manage specific, individual terminals located within six ports."
Obviously, this is a false statement as demonstrated by the exclusion of the P&O full operational control terminal operations conducted at the Port of Tampa and Port of Lake Charles as well as the exclusion of an apparent joint venture full operational control terminal operation at Port Newark, which falls into the same category of operation as the Port of Philadelphia terminal operaton included in the DHS fact sheet.
The Port of Lake Charles is not one of the six ports listed , nor is the Port of Tampa. So, a minimum of 6 terminals are missing from the full operational control of a terminal consideration you mentioned. Plus two to three ports are missing from the list under such criteria.
What the DHS fact sheet dated 22 February 2005 really says is that "DP World will operate at the following terminals within the six United States' ports currently operated by the United Kingdom company, P & O:", followed by the identification of the ports and number of terminals as:
Port of Baltimore - 2 terminals
Port of Philadelphia - 1 terminal
Port of Miami - 1 terminal
Port of New Orleans - 2 terminals
Port of Houston - 4 terminals
Port of Virginia - stevedoring support activities at 5 terminals
The term, "operate at", is inclusive and would not necessarily be limited to full operational control. So, the fact sheet is off to a rough start with that phrase, considering that P&O Ports North America is conducting operations at 22 U.S. ports and at least 55 terminals located at such ports, not 6 or 7 U.S. ports and 11-16 terminals, as stated by DHS.
The fact sheet gives the appearance of having being pieced together or modified after its original draft. It's my understanding that this is a modified version of the original information released by DHS. For example, the Port of New York was dropped from the list, as I understand it.
As mentioned previously in this post, the DHS fact sheet includes the documenting of 8 terminals where P&O operations are conducted, but P&O does not supposedly have full operational control over the terminals concerned. So, DHS has opened the door to include all terminals that P&O conducts operations at, not just those P&O has full operational control over.
DHS has excluded the listing of joint full operational control of terminals at other ports. The Port Newark Container Terminal LLC (PNCT) at Port Newark is excluded from the DHS list of ports and terminals. Conversely, the joint operation of the Tioga Marine Terminal by P&O and DRS at the Port of Philadelphia is included. Other examples exist.
Now, if the next justification by others is that DHS only considered container operations, be aware that P&O is conducting container operations at 15 ports, not 6 ports. So, once again the unknown DHS criteria for inclusion is questionable.
Most importantly, DHS does not acknowledge in its fact sheet that the acquisition of P&O and P&O Ports North America by UAE DP World included the acquisition and transfer of operations at 22 Ports and at least 55 terminals on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, of which 49 terminals are concentrating on cargo other than cruise vessels and passengers. No amount of quibbling by DHS and anyone else will dismiss those facts.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a false fact sheet on the UAE DP World acquisition of P&O and P&O Ports North America. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has made available on line the same false information with its 24 February 2006 update.
Both U.S. Government documents cited should be corrected to reflect the whole truth, or should be removed immediately from both web sites.
The supposed "fact sheets" issued by elements of the U.S. Government that need to corrected or removed immediately are:
Fact Sheet: Securing U.S. Ports
DHS Press Room announcement
Feb. 22, 2006
dhs.gov
Securing U.S. Ports
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Updated 02/24/2006
customs.ustreas.gov |
