Photo Credit: Tim Scott, Flickr
PNG Ports Corporation Limited is adamant about having huge international shipping boats berth in Papua New Guinea ports.
The Lae International Berth is being renovated to meet international vessel requirements, according to Rodney Begley, PNG Ports' chief operations officer.
According to him, the berth can accommodate boats with up to 2800 containers.
“We are working on a plan to upsize the port to the capability that can handle a 9000 container vessel,”.
“That is about future proving the Port and the operations as we move forward.”
According to Begley, they can now handle 5600 container boats with a length of around 270 meters.
“At the moment, larger ships coming into the country is 2800 containers or about 200 meters long.
“This is about bringing opportunities of larger ships coming into the country to improve the supply chain,” he said.
“As we look beyond the next five years, we want to have a Port that can handle a 9000 container vessel.
Those vessels currently move from Asia through to Australia and they bypass PNG,” he said. “Our vision is for PNG to become a hub point for the Pacific, which will allow the moment of freight in and out, agricultural, general cargo, machinery, mining and whatever commodities you can think about through the International Port from Lae through the Pacific. Again this is about future proving and making new business decisions for PNG.”
Reference: Tom, Patrick. Post-Courier (18 August 2021). “Lae Upgrades Port”.
