NCER boost for Penang Port

NST Logistics 06 August 2007

Penang Port expects the development of Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) to develop four northern Peninsular Malaysian states will be a major boom for the port.
 
The port, which last year handled 23 million tones of cargo wants to carry out major port expansion projects in anticipation of the increase expected from the expansion of economic activities within the NCER.
 
“We will be enlarging our cargo handling capacity, both for container and conventional berthing facilities to cope with the expansion in demand for port facilities and services expected from RM177 billion investments in the NCER,” said the chief operating officer of Penang Port Sdn Bhd, Mohd Niana Merican.
 
“We will be expanding our container terminal at North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT) by another 600 metres and this will bring the entire length of the NBCT to 1.5km,” said Naina.
 
The completion of the additional berths will allow the port to accommodate 7 vessels at any one time. In tandem with this development depth alongside will also be dredged to 13 meters from the current depth of 11.5meters, he added.
 
“We will be acquiring six new super post panamax gantry cranes and 15 rubber tyred gantry cranes and this will enlarge our box handling capacity to 1.8 million TEUss, “ said Niana.
 
Further long term plans include extending the quayline by a further 1.5 km which to provide the port with three km long quayline and a capacity to handle four million TEUs.
 
This will developed in stages, said Niana.
 
Naina said as an immediate measure to enhance its handling capacity, the port has taken delivery of two units of post-panamax quay cranes recently. In addition, the port would be taking delivery of two more harbor cranes to handle the increasing volume of box traffic at the port. With new these deliveries the port will have nine quay cranes and two harbour cranes to handle container traffic.
  
As for the conventional cargo handling, the port will be developing a 100 hectares complex for handling and storage of various bulk cargoes.
 
The development of enlarged bulk cargo terminal will able to accommodate additional two ships at any point of time and the terminal would be directly linked with a conveyor belt to the customers facilities.
  
Currently the port handles grains, soybeans and raw sugar.
 
“We will also focusing on the development of central tankage facilities to cope with expanding demand for the DG-cargoes. Presently, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM), are conveyed via pipelines to private onshore installations beyond the terminals boundaries,” said Niana.   

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