North Harbor operator wants container yard vacated

MANILA, Philippines - Manila North Harbour Port Inc. (MNHPI) has asked the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) to order shipping companies using the North Harbor to vacate the container yard to allow the start of the company’s work on the new port terminal.

MNHPI general manager Henry Rophen Virola told reporters over the weekend that they have written the PPA to resolve the issue on the containers occupying almost half of North Harbor’s land area.

Virola said there is a possibility the construction of the terminal building, which is supposed to be built within the first three years of operation, will be delayed as the firm still has not yet taken full control of the entire port.

“We still cannot do anything on some areas of the port since the containers owned by the shipping companies are still occupying a significant part of the port,” he said, adding MNHPI cannot force these shipliners to remove their containers since the PPA gave them permission to operate on the port before the takeover.

“We wrote PPA requesting an immediate resolution to the issue but as of now, there has been no response to the request,” Virola said.

He said the construction of Terminal 1 in North Harbor should start in the first year of its operations. Terminal 1 will handle cargo and its construction will take around three years and has an allocated budget of about P2 billion.

“The construction of Terminal 1, which spans from the old Terminal 6 onwards, will take more or less three years with an allocated budget,” he said.

North Harbor handles more than 85 percent of the domestic containerized and breakbulk cargo.

The first phase of the North Harbor modernization program involves the redesign of the 10-pier port into a three- terminal port with much wider beds that would, all together, enable the port to improve its rate of handling containers, from the five containers per hour to 28 containers per hour. From 1.5 million TEUs capacity, MNHPI will increase the capacity to five million containers a year.

 “This reflects more than 500-percent increase in productivity for the port, and renders substantial savings for shipping companies,” Virola said.

The 25-year North Harbor modernization program includes pier rehabilitation, dredging of port waterways, computerization, introduction of new cargo handling equipment and construction of a modern passenger terminal.

Terminal 1 and 2 will be the container terminals while Terminal 3 will be exclusively for general cargo. A separate modern passenger terminal will be built, rivaling those of other countries, to cater to domestic travelers.

The PPA officially turned over the operations of North Harbor on April 12 to MNHPI, a 65-35 joint venture company between Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc. (HCPTI) and Metro Pacific Investments Corp.(MPIC). The joint venture company earlier bagged the 25-year, P14.5-billion contract from PPA to rehabilitate, manage, and operate the country’s busiest domestic port.