2Go beefs up Batangas calls, leases container yard

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Batangas_port_1Following the success of its first Batangas operations, domestic liner 2Go has doubled its port calls at the Southern Luzon hub at the same time leased a container yard to cope with increased volumes in Batangas.

Jose Manuel Mapa, 2Go vice president for group relations management and central sales, told PortCalls on the sidelines of the Supply Chain Management Association of the Philippines Annual Conference that the domestic carrier added a second weekly call at the Batangas port last August.

The first call was launched in June when 2Go decided to move some of its vessels to the port to avoid the problems caused by the Manila truck ban.

The domestic liner now uses its 280 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEU) and 240-TEU capacity vessels for its Batangas-Cebu-Cagayan De Oro-Bacolod and Batangas-Cebu-Cagayan De Oro-Butuan routes, carrying cargoes mostly from Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon (Calabarzon).

Mapa said 2Go recently rented an 8,000-square-meter container yard outside the Batangas terminal to better service volumes passing through the area.

“In the port itself, there’s no area for storing containers,” he explained, adding that the carrier’s allotted space is “a bit limited.”

“What we did is we rented a CY outside so as the containers come in, we move them right away,” Mapa said.

The container yard is now being expanded as the volume of containers 2Go handles continues to grow, he noted.

The domestic carrier is not a newcomer to Batangas, since it already has two roll-on-roll-off passenger vessels deployed at the port for the past two years for its Batangas-Caticlan sailings.

2Go currently operates 20 cargo and passenger vessels and 13 warehouses, and owns 17,800 containers of varying capacities. – Roumina Pablo