ASEAN Ports Association Malaysia (MAPA)

The North Butterworth Container Terminal (NBCT) registered some 13% increase in the volume of cargo it handled in October.

NBCT handled 94,570 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in October, compared with 83,103 TEUs in September.

Penang Port Sdn Bhd general manager Obaid Mansor told StarBiz that the higher cargo volume was driven by goods from southern Thailand, rise in local businesses’ imports and exports, and an increase in the volume of empty containers from India and the Middle-East.

“We are confident of achieving our target of 930,000 TEUs by the year-end, matching the volume of cargo handled in 2008,” he said.

On the expansion of NBCT, he said the work to extend the 900m berth to 1,500m would be completed a year earlier.

“The original schedule for completion was October 2011. We have finished adding 400m to the berth,” he said.

He also said NBCT had already received four of the seven post-Panamax gantry cranes that it had ordered. “The other three cranes will arrive in the first week of December. Each crane costs RM25mil,” he said.

By: The Star Online

BUTTERWORTH: (NBCT) last month handled 92,439 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), which is the highest volume achieved in a single month in its 35-year history, said Penang Port Sdn Bhd general manager Obaid Mansor.

“The average volume of cargo handled in a month is between 77,000 and 87,000 TEUs.

“In August last year, NBCT handled 85,505 TEUs and in August 2007, it was 78,624 TEUs,” Obaid told StarBiz, adding that it handled 87,879 TEUs in July.

He said NBCT was now optimistic the total volume of cargo handled this year would not decline by 5.5% as forecast in July.

“Cargo-handling activities in the fourth quarter should remain stable and NBCT should handle as much cargo this year as it did in 2008, which was 929,000 TEUs.

“We expect a lot of cargo such as furniture products and consumer electrical goods such as televisions, washing machines and refrigerators to arrive at NBCT in the fourth quarter, as wholesalers in the north would be stocking up to prepare for the festive season,” he said.

Obaid said the increased cargo-handling activities in August was due to a number of factors.

These include the greater volume of rubber-based cargo from southern Thailand exported via NBCT to other parts of Asia, the higher imports of steel scrap by steel mills in the north, and a bigger volume of empty containers coming from the Middle East and India.

“Empty containers comprised about 25% of the volume handled. They generate revenue as NBCT levies handling charges on their owners,” he said.

Export of rubber-based cargo and import of steel scrap were key indicators that the economy in the region was picking up, Obaid said.

“It shows that the effects of the stimulus packages are already kicking in. The import of steel scrap is an indicator that development projects in the north are resuming.”

Obaid said NBCT expected to handle over 80,000 TEUs of cargo this month.

He said the slight drop was expected as the bulk of restocking activities had taken place in August.

“The new seven post-Panamax gantry cranes worth RM175mil, coming in October, will increase the volume of cargo handled annually to over one million TEUs,” he said.

The cranes would be put into action in the second quarter next year, he added.

By : David Tan

PART of Penang Port will be turned into a halal section with halal concept facilities by mid-October.

State Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Abdul Malik Abul Kassim said yesterday the Penang Port was discussing with a Syariah compliance logistics company plans to brand Penang as a halal port.

“The Penang Port has already obtained the Syariah family compliance approval in May.

“The state is now having direct discussions with the Rotterdam Port in Holland and with other related logistics companies,” he said.

Abdul Malik said although Penang Port had allocated certain portions of the port area to be turned into a halal port, the areas would be expanded progressively depending on the demand for halal shipments.

“The state will also embark on a drive to create awareness among exporters on the port halal facilities to enable them to trace where the raw materials were obtained from, their packaging and the company used to transport the products,” he said.

He added that once operational, the halal port could take advantage of the opportunites provided by the halal industry in southern Thailand.

Halal products from southern Thailand are currently being exported via Bangkok.

Abdul Malik said the halal port in Penang would be similar to the one in Rotterdam.

It will have cold room facilities, storage areas and other related facilities to store halal products.

He said the state would look into tapping the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMTGT) to attract investors for the halal industry.

“The state is keen to take advantage of the growing US trillion-dollar halal products industry worldwide,” he said.

By : The Star Online

International container shipping lines operating at Penang Port have slammed the terminal operator for not penalising shippers who overload their cargo containers on a vessel, saying it could lead to an accident.

International Ship Owners’ Association of Malaysia (ISOA) secretary Fong Keng Lun said requests for enforcement have been sent to Penang Port Sdn Bhd (PPSB) as early as June last year, but so far the calls have gone unheeded.

In a letter dated June 30 2008, obtained by Business Times, the association wrote that some of its members had reported that overweight containers from southern Thailand regularly slipped through the checks at Penang Port and Padang Besar Terminal and were loaded onto the vessels.

“Some of these (overweight) containers were subsequently detected at transshipment ports like Hong Kong and were held back until the shipping lines had repacked the overweight containers.

“Shipping lines have to incur repacking costs and very often, due to time constraint, the on-carrying vessels have to sail off without the containers,” ISOA said, also voicing concerns over the risks to human lives and the transportation operators’ equipment.

In the same letter, the association had requested for PPSB’s support to impose the rule that any overweight containers detected by the terminal operator will not be allowed to be loaded onto the vessels.

“A circular was also sent to all ISOA members on July 2 2008, urging them not to accept overweight containers,” Fong told Business Times.

The maximum permissible weight of a 20-foot container is 24 tonnes, 30.48 tonnes for a 40-foot container and up to 32 tonnes for a new generation 40-foot container.

Fong said more recently the association made repeated pleas on May 6 and June 4, which have been ignored by PPSB.

“The letters were issued following news that the problem of overweight containers from South Thailand via Penang had resurfaced. The problem occurred with containers delivered by barge/feeder as well as by rail from Padang Besar,” he added.

Fong said ISOA’s latest calls for immediate action to stem the overweight container issue at Penang Port was also due to a March 2009 incident at Kantang Port, Thailand, which saw two barges heading for Penang Port sank due to overweight cargo.

“Today, both the Kantang terminal and barge operator are not implementing any enforcement of regulations pertaining to overweight cargo. PPSB likewise is also not implementing any check on this issue,” he said.

Fong added that the association was baffled why no action had so far been taken by PPSB on the matter, when Multimodal Freight Sdn Bhd, which manages the Padang Besar Terminal, has responded favourably to similar calls made recently.

“Is PPSB waiting for another accident to happen before it takes any action?” said Fong.

In a letter signed by Multimodal Freight general manager Azman Ahmad Shaharbi, dated May 26 2009, Azman said the company will reject containers found to be overweight and agreed not to load them onto Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd’s (KTMB) trains for export via Penang Port. Multimodal Freight is a wholly-owned subsidiary of KTMB.

It also pledged to install a weighing bridge for weighing all incoming containers, which is expected to be operational by the end of this year.

By : Kang Siew Li

PENANG Port Sdn Bhd (PPSB) is carrying out a rebranding exercise which will see it enhancing its facilities and services to clients while positioning its entire port operations under a new image.

Its managing director, Datuk Ahmad Ibnihajar said the entire rebranding process will not only involve the services the port is offering but also the image, delivery and the work structure of the organisation and its employees.

He said the changes are in order for PPSB to play a bigger role in driving the region’s logistics industry, in line with the government’s aspirations to make Penang the logistics hub for the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER).

When met by Bernama recently, he said that PPSB so far has identified several image solutions that were suited for the company to adopt for its rebranding exercise and hoped to finalise them by the first quarter of next year.

A rebranding programme could then be carried out to give workers a fresh inspiration and encourage them to work harder and make Penang Port relevant to the region’s logistics industry.

“We also want to attract users in the northern region including Southern Thailand to use the Penang Port as a main hub for exporting halal products to the rest of the world,” Ahmad said.

He said PPSB was also working to attract bigger ships from the Middle East and India to use the Penang Port as their cargo delivery and loading centre in the future.

“To enable the bigger ships to call here, we need to deepen the Pulau Pinang Straits and this will need a huge amount of money,” he said.

Ahmad also said that people often had a wrong view of PPSB and thought of it as being only a provider of ferry services and used the services to measure the entire capability of the company.

“That is not accurate, as besides the ferry (services), we are also involved in cargo handling, landing of cruise ships and others. We recorded profit in all the other services except the ferry services,” he added. – Bernama

By: btimes.com.my