Cargo service provider puts P250M in bulk grain depot

THE Oriental Port and Allied Services Corp. (Opascor) has invested in a P250-million Cebu Bulk Grain Terminal (CBGT) at the Cebu International Port.

The facility will reduce the time to unload and bag shiploads of bulk cargo from three days to only three hours, officials said.

The Cebu Port Authority (CPA) allowed Opascor to install the CBGT under an agreement that will give CPA 20 percent of the gross revenue.

Opascor president and general manager Tomas A. Riveral said the CGBT is equipped with two 10-tonner grab clamshells, hoppers, a conveyor system, automatic bagging machines and three conical giant steel silos.

He said the conveyor system is designed to operate at a maximum speed of 300 tons per hour, including the flow rate of all hoppers. The combined bagging speed of the four bagging machines is 100 tons per hour.

If a ship full of rice arrives at the CIP, the rice is sucked out of the ship to the conveyor and is automatically bagged. There’s no need to send workers to the ship to bag the rice and load this on the waiting trucks, Riveral said.

He said the CBGT is also advantageous to CPA because it will help decongest CIP of vessels delivering bulk cargo, such as rice, wheat and corn, as these can be unloaded in less than a day instead of the usual three to four days.

Riveral noted that bulk cargo importers and shippers have been using the ports in Luzon because of the lack of a bulk cargo handling equipment here in Cebu.

“It is now time they come to Cebu to bring their bulk cargo,” he said.

In 2010, Riveral said that Opascor started enhancing its quality management systems to obtain an International Standard Operating accreditation by the end of this year.

“With a marked increase of 12 percent in containerized cargoes serviced by Opascor in 2010, all its innovations and quality improvement efforts could not have been more timely undertaken,” he said.