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The Eastern Corridor Economic Region (ECER) will
definitely be a boon for Kuantan Port which
serves as the major seaport on the eastern
seaboard of Peninsular Malaysia, says Kuantan
Port.
The managing director of Kuantan Port Consortium
Sdn Bhd, Wong Soon Fah the proposed road
infrastructure enhancement would facilitate the
flow of cargo in and out from the ECER which
covers 66,736 sq km of land or 51% of Peninsular
Malaysia covering the three states (Kelantan,
Terengganu and Pahang) and the district of
Mersing in Johor.
He said Petronas (which was entrusted to draw
the Master Plan for ECER) was expected to invest
some 40 per cent of the RM112 investment would
spur the development of East Coast states and
“we are certain that the inflow of FDI will
further boost cargo volume at Kuantan Port,”.
Kuantan Port which is situated at Tanjung Gelang
in Pahang is well connected to the major sea
lanes of the shipping world. Today the Port
serves primarily the Pacific Rim, the Middle
East, the Far East, Europe and Asean region said
Wong.
“The port handled 10.6 million FWT last year and
we are sustaining our throughput volume for this
year. Once the entire development plan (ECER)
officially launched by the Prime Minister, we
really can see how the port will playing its
part,” said Wong.
He said Kuantan Port is continuously investing
in our port infrastructure development project
to cope with demand and specialized need of
shippers.
“We have just completed work on the development
of a dedicated 200-metre berth for bio-diesel
trade. It is a timely development to cope with
the 750 tonnes production capacity per day from
Mission Biofuels plant in Kuantan,” said Wong.
Wong also said the container trade has been
expanding in development region.
“In the light of the prospects, the port
management has given green light for an
extension of container terminal and we are now
extending our container terminal by another 200
metres,” he added.
The port handled 65,000 TEUs in the first half
of this year, recording a moderate 8 per cent
growth compared with the corresponding period of
last year.
The development of the third container berth
will complement the operation of the existing
400-metre dedicated container berth which now
serves 14 regular container shipping services
weekly.
Currently the port is being served by major
liners like PIL, ACL, Evergreen, Maersk Line,
MISC, PDZ, RCL, Samudera Shipping linking
Kuantan Port to the Far East, the Indian
Continent, Middle East, and Europe.
“We have grown tremendously and offering a
variety of excellent berthing facilities to
cater to the growing cargo mix from its
immediate hinterland. Initially the port was
designed to handle general cargo, but today the
port has expanded itself into managing newer
shipping trends by extending its berthing
facilities to well over 3 km,” said Wong.
Kuantan Port operates specialised liquid cargo
berths in excess of 1.95km.
For the expanding palm oil trade, the port
offers three berths which draw 640 metres which
is able to accommodate product tankers from
8,000- 54,000 displacement tones. Besides
handing palm oil the Port also operates a
150-metre mineral oil berth, 720-metre chemical
berth and 240-metre berth for MTBE.
A common pipe-rack running 9 kilometres long has
been developed to facilitate efficient, faster
and safer transportation of petrochemical
products to and from the petrochemical plants in
Gebeng Industrial Estate, to their respective
tank farm facilities at the Port and the liquid
chemical berths.
Break bulk which comprises mainly steel pipes,
heavy cargoes, round logs, sawn timber and ply
woods are handled at the 725-metre long
multipurpose berths.
The port also handles various types of dry bulk
traffic like wheat, maize, fertilizer, PKE, coke
and any other form of dry bulk cargoes are also
handled at the multipurpose berths.
The multipurpose berths has a draught of 11.2
metres capable of accommodating vessels up to
45,000 displacements tonnes and 3 units of
multipurpose cranes with capacity of 40 tonnes
are installed to handle gearless ships. Portable
hoppers and conveyors are available to handle
various types of bulk cargoes. |
