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Ships face nearly week of dwell time before loading, unloading
Ships at the Makassar Container Terminal in South Sulawesi are having to wait for five or seven days before they can load and unload cargo.
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Makassar Container Terminal in South Sulawesi (tribunnews.com/Sanovra JR)
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hips at the Makassar Container Terminal in South Sulawesi are having to wait for five or seven days before they can load and unload cargo.
Makassar Port Authority head Harno Trimadi said on Thursday that the terminal was beyond its capacity, as it was left to deal with 670,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) even though it was only built to accommodate 600,000 TEUs.
“There are dozens of ships that have to wait. This has been ongoing for weeks. The conditions were normal when Transportation Minister [Budi Karya Sumata] visited recently,” Harno said as reported by kontan.co.id.
Harno said the situation was worsened by the terminal's shortage of rubber tyred gantry cranes – equipment used to hoist cargo containers – because some of them were moved to Makassar New Port on Nov. 2.
The chairman of the Indonesian National Shipowners Association’s (INSA) Makassar chapter, Zulkifli Syahril, said the long waits at Makassar Container Terminal had been ongoing for two months.
Zulkifli expressed hope that the port authority could soon find a solution, as the dwell time had resulted in swelling costs for ship owners. “The more time the loading and unloading activities take, the more we spend on logistics costs,” he added. (bbn)
