PPA Upbeat Over Prospects Brought About by New MICT Post-Panamax Cranes

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) General Manager Jay Daniel Santiago witnessed the arrival of a pair of Neo-Panamax and Post-Panamax quay cranes to be used at the country’s biggest container terminal, the Manila International Container Terminal (MICT).

The pair of cranes arrived Thursday, 07 June 2018.

“The new cranes will definitely boost the capability of the MICT and will definitely guarantee a congestion-free international container terminal,” Santiago said at the sidelines of the arrival ceremony held at Berth 6 of the MICT.

“This is by far the biggest and largest crane that any port in the Philippines has. This enables the port of handle ships with capacity of up to 14,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs),” Santiago said.

“We expect other ports to follow suit as we continue to drive towards our vision of a globally competitive port by 2020,” Santiago stressed.

The new quay cranes were manufactured by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. (ZPMC). The quay cranes are part of International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI)'s $80 million capital equipment program for MICT. The pair of Neo-Panamax cranes and the Post-Panamax crane will be positioned at Berths 6 and 5, respectively.

Upon full commissioning, MICT customers can expect quayside productivity gains, translating to shorter port stays.

Aside from these pair of cranes, MICT is still set to receive eight (8) Rubber Tire Gantry (RTG) Cranes by November 2018, and two (2) quay cranes on the first half of 2019.

With the new acquisitions, the MICT now has a total of sixteen (16) quay cranes, the largest fleet in the country.

In December 2016, MICT reached its first year-to-date two million TEU move, triggering a multi-billion-peso capacity improvement commitment with the PPA, in line with the growing consolidation trend among major carriers and the advent of larger vessels.