CT plans to grow reefer points

RAY SMUTS WITH AN additional 550 reefer plug points to come on line at the Port of Cape Town container terminal by the end of January, bringing to some 2 000 the total number of plug points in the terminal, business unit manager Oscar Borchards says the port is thinking a lot further ahead. The medium to long-term plan is to grow to 3 400 points as part of the new 300 metre, R1 billion land reclamation for which an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is complete and a Record of Decision (ROD) awaited from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Richard van Schalkwyk, key account manager: marketing for Sapo in Cape Town says in order to support the refrigerated cargo market, a Refcon monitoring system has been installed as a value-added service for the close monitoring of temperature regimes, specifically the sensitive US and Japan markets. Capital expenditure has been improved for increasing the stacking capacity for empty containers and a project plan to provide hard surfacing of the rail terminal marshalling yard is expected to be completed by the end of May, next year. Cape Town container terminal expects to handle 580 000 TEU in the 2004/5 financial year, representing growth of 8% on the previous year’s volumes.