T

he Transportation Ministry will allocate Rp 25 billion (US$1.93 million) this year to fund a feasibility study for a new seaport location to replace the planned Cilamaya Port project that was canceled earlier this month.

The ministry'€™s director general for sea transportation Bobby Mamahit said on Wednesday the feasibility study would start in June and was expected to be complete by the end of the year. '€œThere are five or six new locations that will be examined, but our focus is to ensure that the new location is clear of any oil and gas activities,'€ Bobby told reporters.

Earlier this month, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the port project would be moved farther east from Cilamaya to a new site on the northern coast of West Java to accommodate the expansion of state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina'€™s offshore operations near the location of the long-awaited port.

According to Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Indroyono Soesilo, there were a total of 203 platforms along the northern coast of Java, 168 of which were over productive oil and gas wells.

Bobby said some of the new locations that were being considered included Tarumajaya, located to the west of Cilamaya, and Ciasem farther east. He added that the new location would have to be near Karawang to facilitate the flow of goods to and from industrial estates in surrounding areas, which are home to automotive, electronics, machinery and information technology manufacturers.

The new international seaport is deemed essential to support the country'€™s biggest port, Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta.

State-owned port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia II (Pelindo II) president director Richard Joost Lino has opposed the project since it was first initiated, as the port operator is currently undertaking a $2.1 billion expansion project, called Kalibaru Port, at Tanjung Priok.

'€œKalibaru Port will have a capacity of 13-million TEUs [twenty-foot equivalent units]. By 2030, we expect to see an increase in traffic up to 30 million TEUS. Therefore we think that the new seaport will perfectly complement Tanjung Priok,'€ Bobby said.

He added that construction of the new international seaport was still expected to begin in 2017 and be ready for operation in 2022, despite the relocation.

National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) deputy chief for infrastructure Dedy S. Priatna said the feasibility study should be conducted independently using the state budget and not involve the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which previously conducted the study for the Cilamaya project.

Dedy, however, said the government was currently discussing a plan to relocate the Cilamaya Port farther east to Subang, Indramayu, or even Cirebon, in West Java.

Pelindo II already operates a port in Cirebon and is planning to expand it from 47 hectares to 200 hectares to accommodate larger vessels with capacities of up to 5,000 TEUS.

'€œI don'€™t see why the government insists on constructing a new seaport in West Java as we already have one in Cirebon,'€ Pelindo'€™s Lino said.