Singapore-based port operator PSA International (PSA) makes its first major foray into the Yangtze River Delta region—one of the most important economic regions in China linking many key cities—by acquiring stakes in a new container terminal in Lianyungang Port in Jiangsu Province, China.
PSA in a joint venture with Lianyungang Port Group will take over the container terminal project from China Shipping Container Lines following completion of the deal.
Expected to begin operations in 2014, the terminal will have a capacity of 2.8 million TEUs (20-foot-equivalent units) and will be “a premium facility to service the world’s mega container vessels,” a PSA statement said. It has 1,700 meters of quay length, super-post Panamax quay, and a water-depth of 16.5 meters.
The terminal is designed to support the container trade originating from the hinterland of Shandong and Jiangsu, China’s second and third largest economic provinces, respectively, and connecting it to the shipping routes linking China with Europe, the Americas, and the rest of Asia.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Nippon Container Terminals (NCT), a company within the Nippon Yusen Kaisha group, has acquired a 12.5 percent stake in Yang Ming’s Kao Ming Container Terminal at the Port of Kaohsiung in Taiwan.
The terminal was established as a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project and started operations in January 2011. It is located near the entrance to the second harbor in Kaohsiung port, Taiwan’s largest harbor.
The terminal has a 960-meter-long berth with water as deep as 16.5 meters, long and deep enough to simultaneously accommodate two containerships of 14,000 TEUs or more.
The second phase of the BOT project was started in 2012 and is scheduled to be completed in September 2014. By then, the terminal will have four berths with a total length of 1,500 meters and can simultaneously accommodate four containerships of 14,000 TEUs or above.
Photo: tommy.lan
