Singapore plans to concentrate all the harbour activities of the field container in the new port of Tuas



Today, in occasion of the start of the work of completion of the third and fourth phase of realization of the container terminal of Pasir Panjang, the minister of the Transports of Singapore, He Tuck Yew, has confirmed the intention of the government to over the long term concentrate in the area of Tuas all the harbour activities of the currently carried out field of the container to Singapore.

"Tuas - the minister has explained - offers a suitable localization because of the depth of its protected waters and for its vicinity is to the main industrial areas that to international the marine routes. We will make in way - She has added Tuck Yew - that the port of Tuas is able to enliven per year until 65 million teu. This, we consider, will offer to Singapore, which total port hub, sufficient ability in order to satisfy the question over the long term".

"Such a consolidation in a single area of our port - it has continued the minister - will allow to obtain us a greater efficiency and economies of scale. Currently - it has remembered - we have five container terminal: Pieces, Keppel, Tanjong Pagar, Pasir Panjang Terminal 1 and Pasir Panjang Terminal 2. In order to manage the operations of transhipment the trucks are often necessary to transfer the container between these terminals using. This involves a waste of time and a cost for the harbour activities, so as a congestion of our roads. The consolidation will eliminate the necessity of this transport between the terminals".

"Moreover - She has emphasized Tuck Yew - the new port will make blank sheet and it will give the opportunity to us to introduce technologies and procedures still more to the vanguard in order to face the future challenges. Our new port will have to be able to enliven the portacontenitori ships of the future generations that could be still larger and more complex regarding the ships today. We could have the necessity to satisfy an increasing fleet of ships fed to liquified natural gas and with other alternative fuel. Moreover, in consideration of our limits as to areas and labor, we must conquer a greater efficiency and a greater productivity. On such purpose - it has specified the representative of the government - to April last year Maritime Port Authority and PSA (the main terminalista of the port, ndr) have started a program of research & development of the harbour technologies. The program is studying among other things automated systems for the ports container, techniques and technologies of optimization and technologies for "green port". In the port of Tuas we will be able to implement some of the results of these projects".

The minister has evidenced that the consolidation of the activities in the field of the container to Tuas would allow also to free important areas, as those currently occupied by the terminals City Terminals and Pasir Panjang Terminal, that they could be red-use.

"The realization of the port of Tuas - She has concluded Tuck Yew - will be a project in the long term that it will be developed in phases. We preview that the first series of docks to Tuas will become operating over about 10 years. As for the widening of the Pasir Panjang Terminal, we will realize the port of Tuas in sustainable way and will adopt all the measures necessary in order to limit any impact on the atmosphere".

If in the plan of the government in a not even remote future the container will have to be enlivened single in the new harbour area of Tuas, group PSA Corporation while continues the widening of its terminalistiche areas with the start of the realization of the completion of the phase 3 and the phase 4 of the container terminals Pasir Panjang Terminal (PPT), currently equipped system of 23 docks for a total of 7,9 kilometers of approaches managed in partnership with the shipowning groups Lowers Ocean Shipping (Group) Co. (COSCO) and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).

The investment of group PSA for the third and fourth phase of the project will pile to about 3,5 billion dollars of Singapore (USA 2,85 billion dollars). It is previewed that the first docks of phase 3 enter in activity in 2014. In 2020, with the completion of the 15 docks previewed from the two phases for a total of 6,0 kilometers of it approaches with depth of the backdrop until -18 meters, the ability to traffic of the port of Singapore will go up per year to about 50 million container teu.