PTP plans capacity expansion
The News Straits Times
Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) is planning to expand its capacity from 12.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) currently to 15 million TEUs in the next five years.
Continuous capacity expansion is vital to ensure that PTP can handle future growth while offering valuable business propositions to customers.
Deputy PTP chief executive officer Hanif Hamid said it is looking at expansion in order to able to compete when the time comes.
“We have submitted our papers to government to gain support financially in terms of capital dredging to expand our current channel,” he said recently.
Hanif added that under the 11th Malaysia Plan, there should be some funds for the industry players.
He said he hoped that PTP would be able to convince the government that the company is viable and would contribute significantly to economic growth.
“In order to expand, we need to further dredge the seabed. The existing depth of our channel is about 16m. In order to accommodate huge container vessels without any tidal restrictions, there is a need to deepen the channel to 18.5m.
15M – TEU TARGET: Port needs to further dredge seabed and widen channel
“Furthermore, there is also an urgent need to widen the channel from current 400m to 600m to prevent bottleneck or congestion,”
It was reported that PSA Singapore is moving its port container-related activies from Pasir Panjang to Tuas from 2027.
The Singapore Tuas Mega Port will eventually handle 65 million TEUs of cargo annually, doubling the amount handled by Singapore last year. According to the report, the Tuas Port, which has started construction in the middle of this year is expected to be completed in 2021.
As a last month, PTP handled approximately 4.5 million TEUs and is on track to achieve its target of more than nine million TEUs this year.
Being one of the busiest ports in Malaysia, PTP handled mostly transshipment PTP, a joint venture between MMC Corp (70 per cent stake) and APM terminals (30 per cent), is Malaysia’s largest container terminal.