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Northport (Malaysia) Bhd has allocated about
RM100 million for enhancing conventional cargo
handling capacity and operations centered at its
Southpoint. In addition, further investments
will also be made on the dedicated conventional
cargo terminals at the Northport terminals.
“The expansion will provide a major boost to a
growing variety of conventional cargo traffic at
Southpoint which is positioning itself as major
regional hub port to handle more non-containerised
trade,” said Ghazali Hassan.
At Southpoint, the berth development involves
widening the current surface span of wharves 3,
4 and 5 that stretch 430 meters to 47 meters,
across from the present 15.2 meters. The berths
will also be installed with new fenders to take
the impact of bigger vessels up to 80,000
displacement tones.
The development work will also involve expanding
berthing and storage capacity which will more
than double the present cargo handling capacity
of Northport to 13.56 million tones.
The new investments in Southpoint received the
green-light from Port Klang Authority following
the offer of 22 acres for development into a
multipurpose yard for value adding and storage
activities.
Parallel measures are also being undertaken to
deepen the dept alongside to 11.5 meters and
deepen the Labuan Gurap Channel to allow the
berthing of bigger and deep draft general cargo
vessels. The turning basin will also dredge to
allow 200 metre-long vessels to enter and leave
the Southpoint without any problem.
“The expansion is to cope with the heavier
traffic movement as well the arrival of bigger
general ships that we expect to make their
presence at South point which is also the hub of
the Malaysian coastal trade with Sabah and
Sarawak, he added.
More than 15 ports are directly linked to
Southpoint at Northport, including all major
ports in Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei, and several
ports in Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh
and India.
Currently, Southpoint has eight berths (from
Berth 1 to Berth 7A). The first four have a
depth between 9 m and 10.5 m to cater for
ocean-going vessels up to 40,000 displacement
tones whilst Berths 5 to 7A with depths of about
6m can accommodate coastal ships of up to 6,000
displacement tones.
Other facilities include eight warehouses and a
recently completed container and multipurpose
yard with a total space of 35,000 sq.metres
apart from other port equipment's including
forklifts (ranging from 3 to 10 tonnes), towing
tractors, mobile cranes (10 to 15 tonnes),
trailers and container trailers.
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