Newly-expanded Batangas container terminal to help ease port congestion

MANILA, Philippines — Congestion at Manila ports may soon ease up with the completed expansion of Asian Terminal Inc. (ATI)’s Batangas Container Terminal.

ATI inagurated yesterday the P2.5 billion expansion of the Batangas Container Terminal, which increases its annual capacity from 350,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to over 500,000 TEUs.

Cabinet officials who witnessed the inaguration welcomed the expansion, noting its various potential benefits to the economy.

“The economy here will certainly boom. From 350,000 TEUs to 500,000, imagine the effect of that to the economy,” Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said.

“With berth 2 inaugurated today, it enables this port facility to handle 50 percent more than the previous capacity. This is more than sufficient now to meet the needs of the rapidly growing Calabarzon manufacturing and agricultural sector,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said.

Dominguez further said the expansion of the Batangas Container Terminal would “spare Manila the curse of congestion experienced lately.”

“With this additional berth, the Batangas port complements the port of Manila. This would provide a good alternative gateway to a rapidly expanding trade. This would service domestic routes to the southern islands as well as handle cargo to and from the regional hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, and our other global trading partners,” he said.

“This additional berth will surely have additional impact to the growth of the economy,” Dominguez added.

According to ATI, the expansion includes more berths for international container ships spanning 600 meters at 13 meters deep, as well as two new quay cranes and four new yard cranes.

In 2018, ATI said the Batangas Container Terminal posted a record throughput at nearly 250,000 TEUs, 26 percent higher from 2017.

The terminal now has 11 weekly shipcalls deployed by major shipping lines.

“In the first three years of operation, BCT only saw minimum cargo of 11,00 TEUs. By 2014, cargo volume had increased by over 700 percent. Since then, cargos destined for Southern Luzon have naturally gravitated towards Batangas, generating momentum marked by double digit growth year after year,” ATI executive vice president William Khoury said.

ATI has earmarked capital investment of P14.7 billion from 2019 to 2020 to develop more berths and storage spaces in Manila and Batangas ports, additional container yards outside the port zones, acquire more cargo handling equipment, and invest in innovations which would redound to greater efficiencies and safer port environment for stakeholders.

Aside from the Batangas Container Terminal, ATI also operates Manila South Harbor, which handled over 1.3 million TEUs of international boxed cargoes last year.