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T Pelindo I, one of the country’s four state-owned port operators, will spend up to Rp 1.3 trillion (US$139 million) this year to improve several ports under its management, a senior executive said.
Bambang Eka Cahyana, Pelindo I’s director of commercial and business development, said last week that port facilities needed to be further improved to enable them to handle more cargo shipment that was expected to increase significantly following the implementation of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) in early January.

He said ACFTA would increase not only imports but also exports of non-oil commodities from Indonesia to other ASEAN members and China.

“This year we allocated Rp 1.3 trillion in capex [capital expenditure], which is higher than the Rp 149 billion last year,” he said, adding that about Rp 800 billion of the total funds would be sourced internally, with the rest from bank loans.

Pelindo I operates and manages several major ports in North Sumatra and Riau, including Belawan Port and Belawan International Container Terminal (BICT), Dumai Port and Pekanbaru Port.

It also supervises 16 small ports such as Pelita Pantai Port and Sungai Duku Port in Riau.

Bambang said that this year, the company would spend Rp 700 billion to purchase new port equipment.

“This year we plan to buy two container cranes and five rubber-tired gantries. We hope to be able to operate five cranes and ten gantries by the second half of 2011,” he said, adding that in 2009, the company purchased three cranes and two gantries.

According to Bambang, Pelindo I will need more funds to purchase such equipment because they were expensive. “A crane costs $9.5 million, while a gantry costs $ 2 million,” he said.

The company will also purchase three new tugboats and two scout ships to speed up docking activities. Bambang said that the price of a new tugboat could reach Rp 25 billion while a new scout boat could cost Rp 2 billion.

Apart from procuring supporting equipment for the ports, Pelindo I plans to expand capacity at BICT port from 600,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to 800,000.