THE Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) is opening the bid for its New Container Terminal 2 (NCT-2) to international shipping lines.
The move guarantees that the terminal will have regular callers which would result in better port revenues and more cargo volume, SBMA said.
China Overseas Shipping Corp, Orient Overseas Container Lines, American President Lines, Maersk and Evergreen are being wooed to join the bidding tentatively scheduled in March.
Contract awarding is expected within the year with full operation of the container terminal eyed by early 2009.
The SBMA sees NCT-2 operations further boosting the area’s breakbulk business which has been swelling by about 40% annually since three years ago.
The terminal is also expected to complement operations of NCT-1 in the containerized cargo business.
The government has invested $80 million into NCT-2. It has a capacity of 300,000 TEUs, expandable to 600,000 TEUs. Its potential annual revenues amount to $6 million, including wharfage fees.
The annual lease for the port, which has a contract span of 50 years, will be enough to shoulder the $60-million loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation used to partly fund the project.
NCT-1, on the other hand, is expected to commence full commercial operations within the first quarter with operator Subic Bay International Terminal Corp. (SBITC), a subsidiary of International Container Terminal Services, Inc., just putting in the final touches in its operations.
SBITC is spending P473 million for NCT-1, mainly for the construction of an administration office, motorpool/engineering office, truck holding area, refueling station, and field office.
When volume reaches 250,000 TEUs per year, the terminal should have four rubber-tired gantry cranes, 22 prime movers, five forklifts, three yard vehicles, and three company vehicles, SBITC said.
SBMA expects to increase Subic’s cargo throughput two-fold starting this year. Based on its projections, a 200% increase in container traffic to up to 150,000 TEUs is achievable once the two new container terminals become fully by 2008 and early 2009.
Non-containerized traffic, meanwhile, is expected to continue registering at least a 40% annual volume growth.
