Continuous port facility additions in Pusan

To entrench its position as a hub port in the Northeast Asia and surapass ports in China, the Port of Pusan is expanding its facilities.
The Korea Container Terminal Authority (KCTA) revealed September 15 that it would add one more berth to accommodate 50,000-ton vessels in the Pusan East Container Terminal (PECT) at the cost of 148 billion won by 2007 starting from next year. With one more berth, PECT will be able to handle up to 1.5 million TEU per year from its current 1.2 million TEU.
The KCTA is also planning to form a joint-venture company together this October with investment from P&O Nedlloyd (49%) and PECT (26%) for the construction of additional berths.
Further improving its facilities, PECT will add a new large-size container crane by the end of next year.
Jasungdae-terminal (formerly BCTOC and now Korea Hutchison Terminal) and New Gamman Terminal have three cranes for each berth, though advanced overseas ports are usually equipped with four?five per berth. However, PECT has only 2.7 cranes per berth, falling behind other terminals in competitive power.
To meet expectations, Jasungdae terminal replaced three container cranes with large container cranes carrying 18-rows of containers at a time and deepened its berth depth to 15 meters.
Jasungdae terminal, the first container dedicated terminal in the Port of Pusan and built in 1982, has had old and out of date facilities leading to low productivity. With this facility addition, it will keep pace with large containers vessels that carry 6,000 to 7,000 TEU vessels.
The rail yard, operated by PECT and Kamman Terminal separately, also had low productivity but recently unified operations to increase handling capacity to 220 thousand TEU from 182 thousand TEU, a 20% growth.
An officer at the KCTA said that it is required to be ready to handle fast cargo growth with its existing facilities before the New Pusan Port opens in 2005.