Wednesday, April 23, 2003 - BINTULU Port Holdings Bhd (BPHB) is building amulti-million ringgit dedicated palm oil terminal at Bintulu Port toprovide better facilities for the handling of the increasing palm oilthroughput.

The terminal's jetty project has been tendered out for RM53mil, andconstruction is expected to start in June for completion by May 2004,according to BPHB chairman Datuk Mohamed Adnan Ali after the company's AGMin Kuching yesterday.

He said the proposed terminal, which formed part of the port's secondinner harbour development, would have bulking facilities and a 1-km longquay.

Tender for the construction and installation of the bulking facilitieswill be called later.

Bintulu Port handled 740,000 tonnes of palm oil last year, and hasprojected the volume to grow to two million tonnes by 2010 in line withSarawak's fast developing oil palm industry.

Also in the pipeline is the construction of a 1,000m general cargo wharf,which will be fully equipped with the necessary facilities, at the secondinner harbour.

When completed, all the general cargo operations at the existing generalcargo wharf will be shifted to the new wharf. The existing wharf will thenbe used for the expansion of the container operations.

According to BPHB managing director Capt Awangku Malyx Pengiran Mahran,Bintulu Port handled 25.59 million tonnes of cargo last year, up from25.21 million tonnes in 2001, representing a marginal increase of 1.52%.

Liquid bulk cargo, comprising liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefiedpetroleum gas, crude oil, petroleum products, middle distillate products,palm oil, ammonia and other chemicals constituted 20.28 million tonnes ofthe total cargo throughput.

The rest were break bulk cargo (3.49 million tonnes) and dry bulk cargo(1.82 million tonnes).

The port received 5,109 vessel calls last year.

Capt Awangku said containers handled last year rose to 104,081 twenty-footequivalent units (TEUs), up from 66,139 TEUs in 2001. Transhipmentcontainers recorded 90% increase to 68,476 TEUs.

The port expects to handle about 128,000 TEUs this year and 159,000 TEUsin 2004.

In a statement, Bintulu Port attributed the impressive increase incontainer throughput to the contribution from main line operators thatcalled at the port as a result of its aggressive promotion and marketingefforts.