Singapore’s maritime agency has signed a billion-dollar deal with a contractor to dredge the waters around Tuas Terminal and reclaim land to build more wharves as part of the state’s port expansion and modernization plans.
The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) inked recently a S$2.42-billion (US$1.816 billion) agreement with Dredging International Asia Pacific-Daelim Joint Venture for the development of Tuas Terminal Phase 1.
The project includes dredging of the waters, construction of wharves, and reclamation of 294 hectares of land.
The undertaking, the first contract awarded for the Tuas project, is part of Singapore’s strategy to consolidate its container port activities at Tuas to meet future demands of container shipping.
Tuas Terminal will see the use of state-of-the-art facilities and technology such as automated cranes and automated guided vehicles for container operations. When completed, it will have the capacity to handle 65 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) per year, almost double the throughput handled by the Port of Singapore in 2014.
The deal was signed during MPA’s inaugural Singapore Maritime Technology Conference on April 23.
The project was started February 28 this year and is expected to be completed by December 2020. Key features include automated machinery and green energy systems that are set to improve productivity and environmental sustainability.
The development project is just one of a series of initiatives the MPA will be implementing to leverage on technology and R&D to raise productivity and further strengthen Singapore’s maritime sector, according to Josephine Teo, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Transport, who officiated the opening of the conference.
These initiatives include launching a series of calls-for-proposals to cover new areas for potential research and test-bedding of technology solutions under MPA’s Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund. The first call-for-proposals will be launched on June 1, 2015.
Another is to extend the Green Technology Programme, launched in 2011 to encourage local maritime companies to develop and adopt green technologies. MPA will be extending the program by another five years until 2021 and commit another S$25 million to the program, bringing the total funding to S$50 million.
MPA also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with A*STAR to collaborate on developing maritime technologies and R&D in areas such as communications technology, smart sensors, modeling and simulation, to bolster the maritime edge of Singapore.
Finally, MPA and the Research Council of Norway will extend their MOU for another three years till 2018. The MOU, first signed in 2000, aims to promote maritime research collaboration and knowledge exchange through joint R&D projects between the two countries’ research institutions. The MOU signing will be held on April 28, 2015.
Photo: Noee
