PTP Up The Ante, Plans To Expand Capacity In Five Years

Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) is raising its ante by planning to expand its capacity from the current 12.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to 15 million TEUs in the next five years.

Continuous capacity expansion is vital to ensure that PTP is able to handle future growth while offering key valuable business propositions to new and potential customers.

Recognising continuous changes in the port industry landscape, PTP Deputy Chief Executive Officer Hanif Hamid said PTP is looking at expansion in order to be able to head-on competition when the time comes.

"We have submitted our papers to the government to gain their support financially in terms of capital dredging to expand our current channel," he told Bernama in an interview, recently.

Hanif said under the 11th Malaysian Plan, there should be some "ports money" for the industry players to tap into and hoped that the company would be able to convince the government that PTP is viable and would contribute significantly to the country's economic growth as well as that of Johor.

"In order for us to expand, we need to further dredge the seabed. The existing depth of our channel is about 16 metres. In order to effectively accommodate the largest container vessels in the world without any tidal restrictions, there is a need to deepen the channel to 18.5 metres.

"Furthermore, there is also an urgent need to widen the channel from the current 400 metres to 600 metres to prevent bottleneck or congestion," he added.

It was reported that PSA Singapore was moving all its port container related activities from Pasir Panjang to Tuas from 2027.

Tuas would eventually handle 65 million TEUs of cargo annually, doubling the amount handled by Singapore last year.

According to a report, the Singapore's Tuas Mega Port, which has started its construction in the middle of this year, is expected to be completed in 2021.

As of June 2015, the company 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 handles mostly transhipment with customers from world's top five shipping lines such as Maersk Line, MSC, CMA-CGM and Evergreen.

PTP, a joint venture between MMC Corporation (70 per cent stake) and APM Terminals (30 per cent), is currently the Malaysia's largest container terminal.