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tate-owned port operator Pelindo II has received the green light to take over the construction of the Kalibaru container terminal in North Jakarta following the government’s recent decision to cancel the tender for the project.

Pelindo II president director Richard Joost Lino said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the company was still waiting for the presidential decree in order to start construction.

“We are now waiting for the Keppres [presidential decree] to be issued and, hopefully, on Feb. 15 we can start the tender,” Lino told The Jakarta Post and two other media sources on Wednesday.

With the new master plan, he said that Pelindo II would increase the capacity at Kalibaru from 1.9 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to 4 million TEUs, and from 1 terminal to 5 terminals comprising 3 container terminals and 2 fuel terminals.

He also said that the sea lane would be doubled in size from the 150 meters as stated in the old master plan, to 300 meters in order to increase shipping traffic.

As a result, the total investment to operate Kalibaru has gone up to Rp 17 trillion (US$1.9 billion), a 45 percent jump from the previous estimate of Rp 11.7 trillion ($1.28 billion).

“We are going to tender Rp 10 trillion [$1.1 billion] for the dredging and infrastructure, while the remainder will be offered to any operating company that would like to invest in the project later on,”
he said.

In the first phase, he said Pelindo will have finished the construction of one container terminal with a capacity of 1.5 million TEUs by the end of 2013. The terminal is expected to start operations in early 2014.

“We are now racing against time but this terminal should start operating early in 2014,” he said. Pelindo II hoped the whole project would be finished in 2017.

He said he had already sent the new master plan to the government.

Kalibaru is one of the most important infrastructure projects in the country to support container traffic in Tanjung Priok Port, which is facing severe problems with capacity.

Container traffic at Tanjung Priok reached 5.8 million TEUs at the end 2011, up by 23 percent from the 4.7 million TEUs in 2010, while the port’s current container volume capacity is only 5 million TEUs.

The Kalibaru terminal project is one of a dozen infrastructure projects offered to the private sector under a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.

At least five local and foreign companies had been short listed to join prequalification for the project, but last week the government announced that they had canceled the Kalibaru project for lacking of money.

The Transportation Ministry’s sea transportation general, Leon Muhammad, said that the government was not able provide a Rp 3 trillion ($330 million) budget in assistance for work on the bridge and dredging projects.

As a consequence, the project was opened to the private sector or state-owned enterprises (SOE).

Another reason behind the government’s canceling of the tender was the fact that the previous Kalibaru master plan included several weaknesses, including disturbing shipment activities at the Koja terminal and the Jakarta International Container Terminal in Tanjung Priok. (nfo)