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The construction of a dedicated container terminal is on track and will be ready soon for commercial operation.
"We would be commissioning the first 200 metres of the 400-metre container berth. This will open yet another new and important chapter in the growth and development of Kuantan Port," said the executive vice-chairman of Kuantan Port Consortium Sdn Bhd PC, Datuk Shamsudin Dubi.
He said as the first and only dedicated container terminal on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, the new terminal puts Kuantan Port on the same league as the other container terminals in the country, and the region.
Shamsudin in the port's latest quarterly publication the new container terminal will have the capacity to handle the port's hinterland container throughput into the next decade.
The terminal will be equipped with a fleet of shore-side quay cranes and complementary land-side support equipment.
Developed in a modular design, the new container terminal is designed largely to meet the rapid increase in the container traffic generated by the development of petrochemical industries of the East Coast region.
"We have witnessed a significant growth in container traffic in the last few years and the growth over the next few years is expected to be even more profound," he said.
Container traffic at the terminal grew by 14.6 per cent in the fist half of this year to 42,686 TEUs compared with 37,234 TEUs in the corresponding period of last year.
Meanwhile the managing director of KPC, Datuk Mohamed Awang Tera said the contractor, Road Builder [M] Sdn Bhd had completed the first half of the dedicated terminal and the port would need couple of weeks to shift the quay cranes from present site to the new site at the newly-dredged inner harbour basin.
"We will be shifting the quay cranes and the shifting will not affect the current container operations at the general cargo berth. Once the operation is shifted to the new terminal we can assure container lines a higher level of services and faster turnaround time for their ships," said Mohamed.
According to Mohamed the entire length of 400-metre woulde be handed over to KPC by end of this year.
KPC invested close to RM100 million on the development of berth and the related handling equipment. The 400-metre container terminal is sufficient to handle up to 300,000 TEUs per annum.
Mohamed said the Port remained confident of getting an additional three more services when the full berth is in operation.
He said this would include some new services strings and increase in frequency in the existing container shipping route.
Currently Kuantan Port is being served by seven liners namely the Malaysia International Shipping Corporation Bhd, Regional Container Line, Maersk Line, Uniglory Lines, Pacific International Lines, Samudera Icon Lines and New Icon lines.
Container Lines Servicing Kuantan Port
|
Name of Company |
Frequency Per Week |
Type of Service |
|
Regional Container
Lines |
2 |
2
Feeders |
|
Maersk Lines |
2 |
2
Feeders |
|
Unilglory Lines |
1 |
1
Direct Caller |
|
Pacific International
Lines |
3 |
1 Direct Caller
2 Feeders |
|
Malaysia International
Shipping Corporation |
2 |
2 Feeders |
|
Samudera Icon Lines |
1 |
1
Feeder |
|
New Econ Lines |
1 |
1
Feeder |
|
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