The Port Authority of Thailand will start receiving bids for the third phase of Laem Chabang Port’s development early in January 2019 after distributing the terms of reference for the project starting on November 5, according to the national news agency NNT.
The third phase of development of Thailand’s largest port is expected to be operational within five years and will increase the port’s capacity to accommodate containers from 11.1 million TEUs per year to 18.1 million TEUs per year and cars from two million units per year to three million units per year, NNT said. Last year the port handled 7.7 million TEUs.
The Thai Cabinet has already approved the public-private partnership model for this phase.
“The construction of Laem Chabang Port will take five years to complete with a tentative opening in 2023-2024. More than 20 Thai and foreign companies have expressed interest in investing in the project whose EHIA [environmental health impact assessment] is expected to be approved in December this year,” NNT added.
Local media reports said construction of the third phase of the port is expected to cost THB140 billion (US$4.2 billion). The government will use international bidding for the port construction and operations.
Rail transportation center opens
Meanwhile, Laem Chabang Port has opened the first stage of the government’s plan to make the country’s eastern seaboard the logistics hub of Southeast Asia with the opening of the Rail Transportation Center.
Deputy Transport Minister Pairin Chuchotavon opened the new freight-loading complex on a 600-rai parcel (almost one square kilometer) between the B and C piers at the port last October 25.
The rail center project was launched in 2015 as part of the government’s push to build double-track freight and high-speed passenger rail lines linking the eastern seaboard with Bangkok, the northeast, and Myanmar. The plan later was folded into the Eastern Economic Corridor strategy.
The RTC operates as a single-transfer station, where up to eight trains can park on two sets of track. A rail-mounted gantry crane can load the trains with the equivalent of 28,000 TEUs.
The center links to 4.3 kilometers of State Railway of Thailand double-track line.
The first phase of the RTC project can handle up to 1 million containers per year with a planned second stage doubling that.
Photo: Lokomotive74
