Northport Corporation Bhd, which in early May will receive one of the world’s largest container ship afloat, has announced expansion measures aimed at enhancing its capacity and capability to meet the demand for the growing size of vessels as well as to cope with expanding volume of traffic.

The measures include drawing additional quay line to accommodate the longer super post-panamax ships and acquiring super post panamax gantry cranes to provide longer outreach across the wider beam of the new genre container ships exceeding 6,500 TEUs.

NCB, comprising two container terminals at Port Klang - Klang Container Terminal and Klang Port Management – said it plans to take delivery of five super-post panamax cranes and draw in an additional 356 metres of quay line that that will expand the terminals current capacity from 2.6 million TEUs to 3.0 million TEUs.

Disclosing this, its chairman Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji said based on current indicators, the terminals are expected to see sustained growth through expansion of indigenous trade as well as regional transshipment.

“There will be higher demand for capacity and this matter is being given top priority in a major expansion programme designed to boost the combined capacity of the two container terminals from 2.6 million TEUs to 3.0 million TEUs by the year 2002,” he noted in the NCB 2000 annual report.

Already in the pipeline are major projects for the expansion of container yards, enlarging of the equipment fleet, replacement of five existing gantry cranes to new super-post panamax cranes and the conversion of berths 12 and 13.

When completed, the two berths will inject an additional 356 metres bringing the combined quay lines of the two terminals to 2,745 metres and provide capability to accommodate the latest generation of container ships.

On current projections, Tan Sri Ahmad said one of the berths is scheduled to be completed in mid 2002 and the other early 2003.

In its maiden annual report, Northport Corporation Bhd – the corporate merged entities comprising Klang Container Terminal Bhd, Klang Port Management Snd Bhd and Kontena Nasional Bhd – announced a group profit before tax totaling RM97.8 million based on total turnover of RM744.7 million.

Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji said the results reported exceeded forecast made earlier in the year.

“The actual results showed a profit of RM97.8 million reflecting an improvement of RM9.8 million, 11.1 per cent,” he said.

In terms of profit after tax the actual figure achieved was RM69.7 million – an improvement of RM13.7 million, or 24.5 per cent higher than expected.

Tan Sri Ahmad said the business activities undertaken through the two port subsidiaries (KCT and KPM) contributed 70 per cent of the Group’s profit before tax at RM68.3 million. The remaining Rm29.5 million came from activities related to haulage/logistics operation (through KN).

He said in terms of container port, the container volume passing through the two terminals under the Group accounted for 69 per cent of the total throughput for Port Klang.

In terms of overland movement of containers, the Group’s haulage subsidiary enjoyed a 30 per cent market share.

In absolute count, the two container terminals serviced throughput of 2.1 million TEUs, including the transshipment of 746,760 TEUs.

The strong financial position of NCB, which is listed on the Main Board of KLSE, was reflected in its low borrowing – less than RM15 million – and healthy cash balance totaling RM296 million.

Meanwhile, according to the financial details contained in NCB’s latest annual report, last year KCT achieved a pre-tax profit of RM59.515 million (on a turnover of RM186/7 million) while KPM reported a pre-tax profit of RM32.4 million (on a turnover of RM275.5 million) and KN, pre-tax profit of RM30.9 million (on a turnover of RM253.2 million).