The expansion of Manila South Harbor’s yard and berth is expected to be completed by late 2020, increasing by 20% the facility’s annual capacity to over 1.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from the current 1.25 million TEUs, according to an executive of Asian Terminals Inc. (ATI), operator of South Harbor.

“We started late last year and we’re expanding our yard, our quay, and our equipment fleet, and that’s going to take until end of next year to come online,” ATI executive vice president William Khoury told reporters on the sidelines of the company’s recent annual stockholders’ meeting.

ATI has allotted 40% to 45% of its P14.7-billion capital expenditures for 2019-2020 to expand Manila South Harbor in anticipation of higher cargo volumes and in line with its concession commitments with the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA).

This year, Khoury said, they expect volumes in Manila South Harbor to grow in the high single digit as the country’s economy grows. In 2017, South Harbor breached the 1-million TEU mark with 1.1 million TEUs handled. Last year, the port serviced 1.17 million TEUs.

The expansion also covers acquiring additional equipment, including at least two new quay cranes, as well as other support equipment such as yard cranes, said Khoury. In addition, a part of the budget will be used to replace old equipment, he noted.

Meanwhile, Khoury said ATI has expanded services offered by its Sta. Mesa, Manila off-dock container yard facility; it now also accepts customs-cleared laden import containers aside from empty containers. This follows the implementation of PPA Administrative Order (AO) 02-2019 directing terminal operators to transfer overstaying customs-cleared import containers from Manila terminals to off-dock depots.

Prior to this, PPA, Bureau of Customs, Association of International Shipping Lines, and ATI and International Container Terminal Services, Inc. signed a manifesto on March 15 that compels the transfer of overstaying customs-cleared containers at Manila South Harbor and Manila International Container Terminal to inland container depots.

(For the full article, please visit https://www.portcalls.com/south-harbors-capacity-expansion-done-by-late-2020/)