Singapore's PSA International to build container terminal in Panama-Business

SINGAPORE_A Singapore port operator said it will develop and operate a container terminal at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal. The terminal, which will be located at Rodman, near the Balboa region, will be operational in two years' time, PSA International Pte Ltd.

Associated Press WorldStream via NewsEdge Corporation :

SINGAPORE_A Singapore port operator said it will develop and operate a container terminal at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal.

The terminal, which will be located at Rodman, near the Balboa region, will be operational in two years' time, PSA International Pte Ltd. said in a statement Monday. The value of the investment was not disclosed.

"I am indeed pleased that we have together taken this important step to develop Rodman into a major port facility on the Pacific coast, in tandem with the widening and expansion of the Panama Canal which is currently underway," PSA Group CEO Eddie Teh was quoted as saying in a statement.

Panama decided in October to go ahead with a US$5.25 billion (€4.03 billion) expansion of the canal to handle modern container ships, cruise liners and tankers that are too large for its current locks. The plan, which would build a third set of locks, or water chambers, on the Pacific and Atlantic ends by 2015, is the largest modernization in the 92-year history of the waterway.

PSA said it is in the first phase of constructing a 330-meter container and "roll-on-roll-off" berth that will be able to handle about 450,000 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, of containers a year. TEUs are an industry standard for cargo volume.

It said the berth's 14-meter water depth will enable the terminal to handle the larger, so-called "post-panamax" ships that are expected to use the canal after it is expanded, the port operator said. Currently, Panamax ships carrying 4,000 containers can just barely fit through the canal's 33-meter (36-yard) locks. "Post-Panamax" ships can carry twice as many containers.

PSA is owned by Singapore's government investment company, Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd.