Tanjung Pelepas - Malaysia
Container Management, August Issuance
Volumes at Malaysia’s second biggest port grew by 12% in 2014, recovering from slow growth in 2013 and moving it up one place in the rankings. The port attributed this to improved global economies and consumer spending.
Triple E-class ships started to call in May 2014 at the port’s two new berths, which have added 720 m of quay length. This RM1.4bn (US$370m) expansion project has given Tanjung Pelepas a total quay length of just over 5 km and capacity of 10.5m TEU.
As for equipment, eight ZPMC quay cranes were delivered in April 2014 which can handle ships with a capacity of 18,000 TEU. Twenty-six electric rubber-tyred gantry (E-RTG) cranes were also delivered in the first quarter of 2014 and almost all existing RTGs have been electrified.
As well as being a major transhipment hub, the port, situated in straits of Malacca, attracted more than 500 000 TEU bound for local markets. This is an area which is hopes to increasingly target, as the commercial returns for local containers are significantly higher than for transhipment cargoes. The port hopes to increases the local portion of its throughput from 6% to 15% over the next five years.
To help achieve this, its free zone is being developed. Warehousing space will increases by 86% between 2015 and 2017 and, as a result, container volumes in the free zone are expected to increases by 82% to 300,000 TEU.
The port had projected a throughput of 9m TEU for 2014 but, having fallen short, now hopes to reach this target in 2015. It is optimistic that the necessary growth for this will come from higher and more consistent productivity and reliability, due to investment in new equipment and on-going capital maintenance programmers.
As for future expansion, three new berths are scheduled to be completed by 2018, which will add 1500 m of quay and 4m TEU of capacity.
