Singapore Opens Next Phase of $3.5 Billion Container Terminal

SINGAPORE, June 23 (Reuters) – Singapore opened the most recent addition to its container port on Tuesday, aiming to deal with extra of the rising variety of mega-ships plying the oceans.

A couple of of the deliberate 15 berths in Phases 3 and 4 of the Pasir Panjang Terminal are operational. The remainder of the S$3.5 billion ($2.6 billion) venture is scheduled to be accomplished by the tip of 2017, pushing Singapore’s annual container dealing with capability to 50 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), mentioned Singapore’s principal container terminal operator PSA.

All the brand new berths at Pasir Panjang Terminal, one in every of PSA’s terminals in Singapore, are designed to have the ability to deal with container ships with capacities bigger than 10,000 TEUs.

Shipowners have been turning to mega-ships to chop down on gasoline prices, even supposing container delivery capability has outpaced demand and freight charges stay below stress.

“This venture additionally displays our philosophy … all the time to scan the horizon, discern the developments, plan and make investments forward of time, mentioned Fock Siew Wah, group chairman of PSA International.

Singapore is the world’s second busiest container port after Shanghai in China, which took over Singapore in 2010.

In 2014, Singapore’s container throughput grew 4 % to a file excessive of almost 34 million TEUs, however the development price was down from round 10 % in 2010, knowledge from Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority confirmed. ($1 = 1.3376 Singapore {dollars})

(Reporting by Rujun Shen; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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