New cranes speed up Opascor

THE Oriental Port and Allied Services Corp. (Opascor), the exclusive cargo handling service provider at the Cebu International Port, recently launched its new cranes that the company said could speed up loading and unloading of cargo.

Opascor general manager Tomas Riveral said the new acquisitions are one brand new quay crane and two rubber-tyred gantry cranes that were manufactured in China, delivered to Cebu and became operational last Jan. 11.

Riveral said that with the new equipment, Opascor now has four quay cranes and can now serve two container vessels at the same time with two quay cranes assigned per vessel.

Riveral said that Opascor can now handle heavier containerized cargoes. Before, Opascor cranes could only lift a maximum of 30 metric tons. The new equipment can lift up to 41 metric tons.

“This new acquisition will most certainly further stabilize Opascor’s productivity, to the benefit of the stakeholders of the port,” Riveral said.

He said the equipment is a “leapfrog for Cebu in terms of cargo handling.”

In 2011, Opascor was accredited by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) under ISO accreditation No. 9001:2008 for “Quality Management Systems-Requirements” conducted by TUV Rheinland.

With the certification, Opascor became the second cargo-handling company in the country to have an ISO certification and the only workers’ enterprise to have done so.

Cebu Port Authority (CPA) general manager Dennis Villamor, of which Opascor has a cargo handling contract, said CPA received 20 percent of Opascor’s income, which amounted to P149 million for 2012 alone.

“We are happy that Opascor has upgraded its cargo handling equipment because if its income will increase because of fast loading and unloading of cargoes, the shares of the government will also become bigger,” Villamor said.

Riveral, who is also a CPA commissioner and chairman of the Committee on Cargo Handling Services, said that as a Government-Owned and Controlled Corp. (GOCC), the CPA is independent from the national government under its own charter. But it remits 50 percent of its net income to the National Treasury.

“So far, the CPA has already remitted about P2.5 billion from its net income to the national government,” Riveral said.

Fred Escalona of PhilExport, a federation of exporters in Cebu, said the exporters can also benefit from the upgrading of Opascor equipment because it will lessen the time to send their products abroad.