Pelindo III plans self-generating cargo port

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned PT Pelabuhan Indonesia III has begun designing the country's first self-generating cargo port.

Pelabuhan Indonesia III president Herman Priyatno said yesterday the cargo port would be built on reclaimed land adjacent to the Surabaya and Gresik ports in East Java.

A self-generating cargo port derives its cargo traffic from industrial plants operating around it, in its supporting area.

Herman said that each hectare of industrial plants in its supporting area should transport between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of cargo a year through the planned port.

This means that if the reclaimed area totaled 3,400 hectares, between 34 million and 50 million tons of cargo would be flowing into and out of the port.

Herman said this was the reason that reclaimed land should be developed into industrial estates and export processing zones, not into housing complexes.

He cited a successful self-generating cargo port in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Herman said the biggest advantage of such ports was their ability to save transportation costs. The cost of transporting a container of twenty-feet equivalent units 60 kilometers overland to a port is about Rp 400,000 (US$173.9).

Herman was quoted by Antara as saying that Surabaya's Tanjung Perak port and Gresik port were ideal for the project because the harbor could be deepened to between 14 and 16 meters to accommodate third-generation vessels.

He said the port's development would require the participation of many government offices because the port would need supporting facilities such as toll roads, electricity and clean water.

He said land would have to be acquired to make way for access roads and mangrove forests must be removed for reclamation.

In a separate development, officials of the Jambi provincial government in central Sumatra announced that a Rp 2.5 billion export harbor would be built in Muara Sabak, Tanjung Jabung regency.

The head of the Ministry of Transportation's provincial office, Usman Duni, said the area had been selected because it was deep enough to accommodate ships of up to 15,000 dead weight tons.

The port would mainly handle crude palm oil (CPO) exports, he said, so a CPO storage facility would be built there.

Jambi's eight CPO processing plants produce 270 tons of CPO an hour.

Usman said the Talang Duku port, which officially opened last year, could not handle CPO shipments because it did not have a CPO storage facility. (pwn)