State officials say the British company being courted by a United Arab Emirates-owned firm plays a minor role at the Rhode Island facility.

01:11 AM EST on Saturday, February 25, 2006

BY BRUCE LANDIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The state port at Davisville is one of the places where the British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., the focus of an intense national controversy, does business -- but only a little bit of business, and none of it having to do with security, state officials were quick to say yesterday.

P&O is the company on the verge of being bought by Dubai Ports World, the United Arab Emirates government-owned company. The prospect of the security of American ports being influenced by an Arab government has produced a loud dispute.

Members of Congress from both parties oppose the deal, questioning whether the United Arab Emirates should be involved in security arrangements at U.S. ports.

The Bush administration said yesterday it won't reconsider its approval for DP World to take over significant operations at six U.S. ports from New York to Louisiana. The former head of the Sept. 11 commission said the deal -- which is scheduled to take place Thursday -- "never should have happened." Although P&O operates ports elsewhere, state officials said its only role in Rhode Island is to provide stevedoring service -- that is, supplying the workers who drive the thousands of cars, primarily Volkswagens, off the ships and onto the dock.

"P&O has no role in deciding what ships come in, when they come in, and what the security arrangements are," said Jeff Neal, spokesman for Governor Carcieri.

W. Geoffrey Grout, chief executive officer and managing director of the Quonset Development Corporation, said the corporation itself runs the port and the state's 3,000-acre Quonset Industrial Park, in North Kingstown.

He said the corporation handles all aspects of managing the port, including security, using a plan approved by the Coast Guard.

Steven J. King, the corporation's chief operating officer, said that when the crew of workers arrives by bus to unload a ship full of cars, "we search the bus." The corporation also does background checks on all the workers, he said.

Grout said autos are by far the port's main cargo. The other regular one is fish: two deep-sea fishing boats operate out of the port.

The port has two piers, each 1,200 feet long. About 80 shiploads of automobiles pass through the port annually, Grout said, for distribution within a roughly 300-mile radius from Davisville. What holds down the volume, he said, is that the cars must be moved by truck. Once the state completes rail improvements to the industrial park, the car-importing business could increase substantially.

The Quonset Development Corporation is a subsidiary of the quasi-public Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, whose chairman is Michael E. McMahon, the state's director of economic development.

P&O is the parent of P&O Ports North America, which has operations at 21 ports, 11 of them along the East Coast -- from Portland, Maine, to Miami. Before yesterday, it had been widely reported that only six U.S. ports were involved.

A P&O Web site says the company "handles 80,000 units of import automobiles per year" at the port in North Kingstown.The Web site also says that the port is operated by the Economic Development Corporation.

The other large commercial port operation in the state, the Port of Providence, is owned and operated by a local company, according to the man who runs it.

"It's American-owned through and through," said Ray Meader, the president of ProvPort Inc., and not just American-owned, but Rhode Island-owned, he said.

The Port of Providence stretches for about a mile on the west side of Providence Harbor. Meader said it handles bulk cargo, such as salt and scrap metal, and "break-bulk" material, such as lumber and steel. About 1.7 million tons of cargo passed through it last year.

-- with Associated Press reports

blandis@projo.com / (401) 277-7487