Pelindo spends $47m on Banjarmasin port project
State-owned port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia III (Pelindo III) has spent Rp 540.64 billion (US$47.57 million) this year to expand Trisakti Port in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, to help increase the productivity of the port.
It expanded the port’s existing container yard to 265 meters and general yard to 96 meters. It also built a coal storage yard with full-plate concrete on an area covering 1.9-hectares in order to cope with the anticipated surge in demand.
“South Kalimantan has been undergoing sound economic development over the past few years, as a result the annual container traffic passing through the port has increased.
“This expansion project is very crucial because port infrastructure will accommodate more traffic and support the government’s MP3EI [Master Plan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia Economic Growth] program,” spokesman Edi Priyanto said Tuesday.
According to the company’s data, the container traffic moving to and from the port has increased 167 percent in the past four years.
The data showed that there were 250,372 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers passing through Trisakti Port throughout 2008 and the figure rose to 419,335 TEUs by the end of 2012.
Edi said more than half of the project’s total investment, or around Rp 365 billion, went to lifting and transporting equipment, like container and rubber tyred gantry (RTG) cranes to accelerate loading and unloading activities at the port.
He said the port saw 287,503 containers, equal to 317,190 TEUs, in traffic during the first nine months of the year.
He also said the expanded port would be able to operate 24 hours non-stop, up from eight hours
a day previously, and accommodate more ships willing to enter the port, thanks to a new subsidiary that was established together with the South Kalimantan provincial administration.
In addition, Pelindo III terminal services senior manager Eko Harijadi Budijanto said the company was going to team up with state-run survey and consulting firm PT Surveyor Indonesia to help optimize the port’s operations in the future.
Surveyor Indonesia would assess the waiting time, approach time, effective time, berth time, berth occupancy ratio, container receiving and delivery, shed occupancy ratio and yard occupancy ratio, among other indicators, at the firm’s 17 ports for one year, he said.
“We can say that our operational and financial performance is good now. But, we need comparison data […] to make everything better,” Eko said.
Surveyor was recently appointed by the Transportation Ministry’s sea transportation directorate general to survey 48 commercial ports across the archipelago in an attempt to find solutions for the country’s poor port infrastructure.
Eko said the consulting firm would submit a report on the performance of every port Pelindo III managed, on a monthly and quarterly basis, both with the ministry and the port operator.
In addition to Trisakti, Pelindo III also manages, among others, Tanjung Perak Port in East Java, Tanjung Emas Port in Central Java, Benoa Port in Bali, Sampit Port in Central Kalimantan and Bima Port in West Nusa Tenggara.
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