INTERNATIONAL Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) has secured the nod of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) to expand the company’s flagship terminal in Manila, which would mainly add additional berthing space to accept larger vessels.

In a document, ICTSI said it is spending some P4.5 billion to reclaim some 23.4 hectares of land north of the Manila International Container Terminal (MICT), the country’s largest, that can handle up to 1.6 million 20-foot containers in a year.

In an earlier report, the company said it will expand the port capacity to 2.1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) by next year, one of the most significant improvements in the last half a decade aside from setting up port-security equipment.

The site preparation and development will start this year, according to the document, and will be completed by next year.

The plan already has a permit from the Philippine Reclamation Area, an agency under the Office of the President that gives the green light to all reclamation projects in the country, while the PPA has also approved the conceptual plan for the development of the Berth 6 project May last year.

ICTSI will start importing equipment in June, to continue through 2009, while commercial operations of the new berth will start in 2010.

According to the plan, ICTSI, the country’s biggest port operator, will construct Berth 6, located north of MICT, including a cement wharf of MICT to meet the high demand in containerized traffic in the port.

ICTSI will service containerized cargo of post-Panamax class vessels of up to 85,000 dead-weight tons.

The wharf shall support the rail-mounted post-Panamax container cranes and five 12-meter draft berthing slots, the plan said.

ICTSI will have reclamation extending 20 meters beyond the bulkhead walls and will have a separate line for receiving and loading the new container depot.

ICTSI may collect port dues, rates and charges for the use of the facilities, cargo-handling equipment and services rendered by the firm. The seaport project will generate some 185 jobs.

The company is expanding the terminal after volume reached 1.37 million TEUs, or about 63 percent of the total international container traffic at the Port of Manila.

It broke its trend of just handling just 1.2 million TEUs since 2004 to 2006.

If the planned expansion pushes through, MICT would still be the biggest facility of ICTSI among its facilities worldwide. Its Chinese terminal is the second-biggest with a capacity of handling 1 million TEUs, followed by its Syrian port with 900,000 TEUs.

By next year ICTSI would have a total capacity of 7 million TEUs from the current 5 million TEUs, but that already includes its Colombian port, which is still in the planning stage of construction and can handle up to 500,000 TEUs.

The other ports that ICTSI would also expand next year include facilities in Brazil, Poland, Indonesia, Ecuador and Georgia.

ICTSI has increased its capital expenditures for this year to about P10 billion from P9.9 billion last year, with the acquisition of new equipment for Ecuador and the construction of terminals in Colombia and Poland.

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INTERNATIONAL Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) has secured the nod of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) to expand the company’s flagship terminal in Manila, which would mainly add additional berthing space to accept larger vessels.