Final Samalaju packages
Bintulu Port to invite bidders for last round of works for port project
KUCHING: Bintulu Port Holdings Bhd (BPHB) will round up the award of a series of works packages for the billion-ringgit Samalaju Port development project in Bintulu by inviting bidders for the final package - the supply of wharf unloading equipment - in the months ahead.
Last month, BPHB awarded two other packages - the design, construction and completion of the conveyor system facilities to Muhibbah Engineering (M) Bhd for RM157mil, and the construction of an administrative building and associated works to Samado Sdn Bhd for RM40.4mil.
The contract periods are for 22 months and 21 months, respectively.
BPHB chief executive officer Datuk Mior Ahmad Baiti Mior Lub Ahmad said the tender for the wharf unloading equipment package is expected to open for bidding early next year.
“This final package will involve the supply of one pneumatic suction loader and three units of level luffing cranes,” he told StarBiz. BPHB has a budget of some RM70mil to acquire these equipment.
Mior Ahmad said based on seven works packages awarded so far, the combined contract value was within BPHB’s orginal planned budget of RM1.8bil to develop the new port, which is designed to serve energy-intensive industries like aluminium smelters and manganese and ferro-alloy smelters in Samalaju Industrial Park.
The RM194mil interim port facilities package was the first to have been completed and operational about six months ago.The facilities, which include two wharves and a roll-on roll-off ramp, are capable of handling up to four million tonnes of cargo a year.
Operator Samalaju Industrial Port Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned BPHB subsidiary, is targeting to handle between one and three million tonnes of cargo, mostly project cargo, each in 2014 and 2015.
Other works packages in various stages of implementation are capital dredging and reclamation (RM437mil), breakwater and associated works (RM306mil), wharf and associated works (RM311.1mil) as well as electrical works and navigation aids system (RM47.53mil).
Mior Ahmad said certain works packages were progressing behind schedule by nearly two months, adding that the delays would be addressed with a catch-up programme.
“So far, the overall progress of the project is more than 40%. We still expect full completion of the new port in the second quarter of 2016.”
According to Mior Ahmad, four conveyor lines would be built to either deliver raw materials from the port right to the manufacturing plants of energy-intensive industries, or have the raw materials transferred from the port to an open stockpile area, where the companies concerned would load them onto lorries and send them to their factories.
He said Press Metal Bhd, which owns an aluminium-smelting plant, would have the raw materials delivered to its factory via a onekm long conveyor line system. OM Materials (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd - a 80:20 joint venture between OM Holdings Ltd and Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd - will collect the raw materials from the stockpile. OM Materials (Sarawak) is scheduled to commission its ferro-alloy smelting plant shortly.
The next company to commence operations would be Permata Ferroalloy Sdn Bhd, which is investing in an RM790mil manganese-smelting plant.
Besides Press Metal, Japan’s Tokuyama Corp recently started commercial production of its polycrystalline silicon plant in Samalaju Industrial Park.
Mior Ahmad said the energy-intensive industries are expected to switch to Samalaju Port to ship their products to their buyers when the port is in full operations. Its current shipments are via Bintulu Port, which is some 45km away from Samalaju Industrial Park, located in the north-western part of the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy, or SCORE.
Samalaju Port is targetted to handle six million tonnes of cargo in its first year of full operations.