BNCT, the newest and most modern container terminal in Busan, South Korea recently passed the 10 million TEU mark less than six and a half years after its first vessel call on February 23rd 2012. To commemorate this milestone, a traditional cake-cutting ceremony with BNCT’s senior management, operator plus BNCT’s four biggest customers CMA-CGM, COSCO, OOCL and Evergreen in attendance was held.
Proud of BNCT’s accomplishment in reaching this milestone, Mr. John Elliott, CEO and President of BNCT who has been running major container ports and terminals around the world for over 29 years exclaimed “this is the fastest and smoothest achievement of 10 million TEU by a new container terminal I have ever seen. It is very unusual for such a large container facility to have run so long at such high growth level without any major operation al issues or breakdowns since opening”.
In addition to thanking all for their hard work since opening Mr. Elliott chose specifically to recognize the valuable contribution of BNCT’s maintenance function saying “this team has gone over and above to save BNCT cost and ensure smooth operations since the beginning. Most importantly, it is because of such contributions by our skilled staff combined with the good partnership with our customers and great support from the BPA and MOF government that we will be able to expand our capacity and hire additional port industry workers in New Port via our 2nd expansion as quickly as possible”.
With a current capacity of 2.5 million TEU, BNCT is on track to reach 2.3 million containers for 2018 which is 16% increase vs previous year. Mr. Peter Slootweg, CCO of BNCT, was honored to share this moment with BNCT’s four biggest customers recognizing and thanking them for the 7000 vessel calls it took to reach 10 million TEU. With further expansion possible to over 3.5 million TEU in the future and current efforts underway to realize over 700,000 TEU of additional capacity, BNCT is the only terminal able to construct significant additional capacity in Busan Port until 2022.
Mr. CM Jung, Managing Director of CMA CGM Busan, thanked BNCT for the dedication and hard work that got us here today remarking that “With 10 million TEU achieved after 6 years I am confident that BNCT’s continued efforts to handle ever increasing volume will see it achieve 20 million TEU in just 3 more. As a partner of BNCT, I am excited to see and be a part of BNCT’s success and enthusiastically support BNCT’s further growth in the years to come.”
