The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has moved the bidding for its second container terminal towards the end of the year from early 2008.1t explained that this would maximize the potential of t heir two new container terminals if it will go into full commercial l operations together by next year.
On an interview, SBMA seaport chief Capt. Perfecto Pascual said that they will prioritize the privatization of the New Container Terminal 2 (NCT-2) instead of the earlier plan to first auction the old Naval Supply Depot. “We will go first with NCT-2. We will have the privatization towards the end of the year and expect the awarding within the first quarter of 2008;’ Pascual said.
He added that SBMA is now fine-tuning the Terms of Reference for NCT-2 and will publish the invitation to bid for the terminal in the next two to three weeks. Pascual said they will auction the management and operations contract of NCT-2 through an international competitive bidding unlike the NCT-1 wherein bidders are required be majority owned by Filipinos.
Pascual likewise added that once privatized, it would avert the decline in cargo volume that has been in the downtrend the past four years. NCT-2 is part of the Freeport’s $215-million modernization project to bump container traffic to four folds by next year. SBMA recently awarded NCT-1 to Subic Bay International Terminal Corp. (S BITC). majority owned by the International Container Terminal Services. lnc.
SBITC will inject some P500 million to achieve target volume for NCT-1. Both NCT-1 and NCT-2 is intended to start economic growth in the area and promote the growth corridor between and along Clark and Subic as the most viable regional logistics hubs.
The construction of the port modernization project commenced in 2004 as implemented by Penta Ocean Corp., with its partners Shimizu Corp. and TOA Corp. through a joint venture. It entailed the installation of four gantry cranes from Japan, two of which were installed in May 2006, and the other two in March 2007. The newly acquired goose necktype quay gantry cranes with a capacity of 40.6 tons rated load each, is also part of a bigger plan for the Subic port to enhance capacity from the present 100,000 TEUs to at least 600,000TEUs.
Each of the container terminals were installed with two gantry cranes. Also included in the package are the construction of the modern container terminals and the two berths measuring 280 meters in length with a depth of 13 meters.
For the past two years, SBMA registered a combined container volume of 65,587 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), 5% lower compared to the 69,521 TEUs it registered in 2004. With the new terminals, SBMA is expecting to double boxed traffic from current volume to some 100,000 to 150,000 TEUs in the first year of operations and increasing by some 100,000 TEUs starting at the second half of 2008.