State run port firm Pelindo II, also known as the Indonesian Port Corporation (IPC), on Friday held an official ground breaking ceremony, attended by Indonesian officials, for the future Kalibaru Port in North Jakarta, which is to become the country’s largest industrial port, the Jakarta Post reports.
The Port Kalibaru project worth of $2.47 billion will be implemented in three phases. The port’s projected capacity is 13 million TEUs a year.
In the first phase, IPC will construct three container terminals with a total capacity of 4.5 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and two fuel berths that are expected to be completed by the end of 2017.
Each terminal will have a draft of 16 meters, allowing a container ship with a capacity of up to 8,000 TEUs to dock. In the future, the draft will be deepened by up to 20 meters to cope with much larger ships such as those with 18,000 TEUs.
“This is a historical moment for Indonesia because we have not expanded [the existing] Tanjung Priok Port for 130 years despite container traffic increasing at around 24 percent annually. We are committed to providing the best service in this port and to reducing dwelling time from 6.2 days to 3 days,” IPC president director Richard Joost Lino at the ceremony.
The port is part of the so-called Nusantara Pendulum, the nation’s main sea corridor connecting six ports, including those in Belawan, North Sumatra, and Makassar, South Sulawesi.
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