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Northport aiming for ultra-large boxships with wharf 8 investment

Northport aiming for ultra-large boxships with wharf 8 investment
Northport, the smaller of the two operators at Port Klang, sees its MYR350m ($136m) investment in its new wharf 8 as key to preparing itself for the future, local reports quoted ceo Abi Sofian Abdul Hamid as saying.

The redevelopment of the wharf will help to attract more main line operators with ultra-large vessels of up to 18,000 teu to call at the port on regular basis, he said.

Northport aims to bring itself into the ultra-large container vessel network, ensuring that carriers which run these ships include it in their service loops. While Northport has accepted 14,000 teu vessels before this has only been on an ad-hoc basis.

Abi Sofian said the construction of wharf 8, now in the tendering process, should start by year-end. “The development of wharf 8 leans more towards capability building rather than increasing capacity. By upgrading wharf 8, annual capacity will increase by 300,000 teu, but the main objective is that ships as big as 18,000 teu could call at our port anytime," he said.

Northport’s annual capacity now is 5.6m teu. It handled 2.9m teu in 2013. Abi Sofian also noted that as more main line operators called at the port this would in turn attract more cargoes and feeder lines.

He said however for these ultra-large vessels to call at the port, or make the terminal part of their network, the port must have a strong wharf. “We cannot just put big handling cranes on the existing wharf as they could not withstand the load,” Abi Sofian said.