The new B terminal of Incheon Port, which is connected through the Songdo International Business City in the Incheon Free Economic Zone opened on June 1.
The new terminal has an inside wall 800 meters long for berths for ships and another inside wall that can load and unload containers where five large cranes and 14 yard cranes ready for operation.
President Lee Do-hee of Shinkwang Shin Container Terminal, which manages the new terminal, said the B terminal alone can handle 1.2 million TEU of containers annually(One TEU is 20 feet long). The container terminal can handle any size of container vessels less than the 18,000 TEU in size, the largest container vessel existing in the world, making the attraction of container vessels to the new container terminal at Incheon Port easier, the CEO added.
The Incheon Port Authority(IPA) worked hard to build the new B terminal, which is the fifth terminal in Incheon Port after North Port, South Port and Yeon An Port, showing the need for another container harbor exclusively for handling container vessels, taking over from South Port which handled exclusively the container vessels coming and out of Incheon Port. South Port can only handle 1.12 million TEU of containers, causing the waiting time for container vessels to load and unload containers getting longer with its capacity to handle container’s limited.
IPA spent 5.4 trillion won for the construction of the new B terminal with its container berths can accommodate 25 ships at one time with the berths for four general ships totaling 29 berths altogether with the backyard as large as 6.19 million sq. meters. The construction of the new B terminal by Shinkwang is one of the three stages of the huge project and A terminal, the second stage of the project, is being built by Hanjin scheduled to be completed in January next year. When the entire project is completed, the container handling capacity of Incheon Port will be boosted to 3.52 million TEU annually.
Incheon Port thus far could only handle 4,000 TEU container vessels due to its low water depth ranging from 8 to 12 meters, but the new Incheon Port’s water depth will rise to more than 14 meters and can accommodate the container vessels as large as 16,000 TEU. On June 6, the Hyundai-Tokyo, a container vessel weighing 6,000 TEU is scheduled to disembark at the new Incheon Port for the first time thanks to the deeper depth of water at the new harbor.
IPA sees Incheon Port becoming a hub in the Yellow Sea-rim of container harbors with harbors in China such as Tianjin, Dairen, and Qingdao and harbors in Korea led by Busan, Yeosu, and Gwangyang with containers in the Capital area headed overseas loaded at the new Incheon Port.
Vice President Hong Kyung-won of IPA said when the new Inchon Port opens with the capacity to provide berths for large container vessels, Busan will be the transfer port for container cargoes headed for Russian Far East from the West coast of Japan, while the Incheon Port will be the transfer port for containers bound for North China, the Seoul area, Americas and Europe. The new Incheon Port’s container cargo transfer rate will escalate from the current 1 percent boosting its position higher as a container transfer harbor in the Yellow Sea-rim.
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