Port transformation: Collaboration for the sake of affordable logistics
This article has been translated by PwC Indonesia as part of our Indonesia Infrastructure News Service. PwC Indonesia has not checked the accuracy of, and accepts no responsibility for the content.
Bisnis Indonesia - Transformasi pelabuhan: Kolaborasi demi logistik murah
23 October 2023
By: Lukman Nur Hakim
Port transformation that has continued for more than 2 years still needs connectivity support with economic zones to make national logistics costs affordable.
For more than a week, the 2023 port exploration team has been going along the northern coast of Java to visit several main ports in Indonesia.
After the discharge process with Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi on Friday (13/10), the team immediately headed to Cirebon Port in West Java to observe coal stevedoring activities.
The easternmost port in West Java handles 3.8 million tonnes of coal per year to be distributed to industrial estates around Cirebon, Purwakarta, and Bandung.
Then, the team continued their exploration to Tanjung Emas Port in Semarang. The team directly saw the condition of the port in Central Java and the container stevedoring activities at Semarang Container Terminal (TPKS).
Last year, TPKS handled 690,611 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers. The achievement was surprising amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In 2015, container stevedoring activities at TPKS reached 456,780 TEUs.
Continuing to Surabaya, the team visited Tanjung Perak Port in Surabaya after visiting the headquarters of the subholding PT Pelindo Terminal Petikemas (SPTP). Then, the team continued their exploration to three terminals at Tanjung Perak Port that are operated by Berlian Jasa Terminal Indonesia (BJTI), Terminal Petikemas Surabaya (TPS), and PT Terminal Teluk Lamong (TTL).
Surabaya is a hub city as it is a cargo delivery centre from Java to eastern Indonesia and other countries.
TPS operates one of the busiest terminals at Tanjung Perak Port. With 12 container cranes (CCs), until September 2023, TPS logged that its international container volume has increased by 4.23%. The achievement is supported by the reliability of their equipment and human resources that can load and unload 59 containers per ship per hour.
Performance improvement is carried out sustainably. Currently, all CCs of TPS use electricity. Besides contributing to environmental conservation by reducing carbon emission, electrification can also lower down time by 30% to maintain service reliability.
This year, SPTP and TPS are procuring 4 CC and 14 RTG units that are fully electric. These new equipment are planned to arrive and operate in 2025. With equipment rejuvenation, performance will be faster and stevedoring capacity will increase to 2.7 TEUs per year. After TPS, the team also observed the stevedoring activities at TTL.
Terminal Teluk Lamong is a subsidiary of SPTP. Until now, TTL has been implementing the smart and green port concept in its operation.
In line with TTL’s transformation, ship stay time at its terminal is increasingly shorter, which boosts ship service productivity. Previously, its domestic dock only handled 80-90 units of ships per month. Now, TTL handles up to 100 units of ships per month.
Last year, TTL handled 817,215 TEUs of cargo, which increased from 780,160 TEUs in 2021. TTL’s cargo traffic in 2021 also increased by 15% from 678,208 TEUs in 2020.
Several shipping companies, such as PT Salam Pacific Indonesia Lines (SPIL) and PT Meratus Line, have benefited from Pelindo’s port transformation. SPIL Operations Director Bambang Gunawan stated that the ship productivity of SPIL increased thanks to the acceleration of stevedoring activities at Pelindo ports.
“Our expectation as a user is zero waiting time, so ships can berth and leave immediately,” he stated.
However, Bambang hopes the container terminal operator is not complacent. He also hopes that Pelindo will continue to transform its ports sustainably to further improve its performance.
The same thing is also felt by Meratus Line President Director Slamet Raharjo. According to him, the port transformation strategy allows shipping companies to directly communicate with Pelindo’s board of directors if there are delivery or stevedoring issues.
Besides that, port transformation makes service and communication go through a single point. “In the past, we had to communicate with Pelindo I, II, III, and IV. Now, there is only one Pelindo,” Slamet said.
According to him, the single point scheme creates time efficiency and lowers logistics costs that must be spent by shipping companies.
SPTP President Director M. Adhi said that port transformation was inevitable after the merger of the four port state-owned enterprises (SOEs) into one port SOE.
On 1 October 2021, PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) was established after the merger of four SOEs, namely PT Pelabuhan Indonesia I, II, III, and IV.
After the merger, Pelindo’s integration is divided into four business units or subholdings, namely SPTP, PT Pelindo Multi Terminal, PT Pelindo Solusi Logistik, and PT Pelindo Jasa Maritim.
SPTP is the terminal operator that provides container services with an integrated and standardised network. Initially, SPTP was born from the idea of the government to establish PT Terminal Petikemas Indonesia (PT TPI) that started operating in 2014. After Pelindo’s integration, PT TPI changed its name to SPTP based on the renaming act issued on 11 October 2021 that is currently one of the subholdings of Pelindo.
Currently, SPTP operates at least 14 container ports and nine subsidiaries that manage container ports.
Next Article: PTPP obtained Rp23.6 trillion new contracts
