South Pacific International Container Terminal (SPICT)

The groundbreaking 223-meter LOA gearless ship, KOTA GABUNG, marked its inaugural calls at SPICT on November 12 and MIT on November 17, operated by Mariana Express Line Ltd. as part of the 'North Asia Express Service.'

This service is a Vessel Sharing Agreement (VSA) between Mariana Express Line Ltd. and Swire Shipping Line, connecting major ports in Eastern and Southern China to Papua New Guinea and Northern Australia.

The cranes arrived aboard ‘spliethoff’ at 8 am on Saturday, September 30th, at the port operator’s terminal. 

SPICT is a subsidiary of Filipino-owned port operator, International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI).

The state-of-the-art Japanese equipment will support SPICT’s yard operations, with Robert Maxwell, CEO of ICTSI South Pacific, saying it will serve the vessels faster and support more efficient landside operations by reducing the port users’ truck turnaround time within the facility.

The event was hosted on Saturday, September 23^rd, at the SPICT premises at the Lae Tidal Basin.

This year’s event is a celebration of the terminal’s milestone of achieving more than 2,000 days of operations without Lost Time Injury (LTI).

With a carrying capacity of 2,742 TEU, the GSL Elizabeth was on shore with an overall length of 221 meters and is part of PWX's weekly service of the Swire Shipping Line.

Also in addition to being the largest international container ship in the country, it is quite significant to highlight that GSL Elizabeth is a gearless vessel. This means that a gearless vessel is a ship without cranes, and thus, fully relies on shore-based equipment at its ports of call to load and unload cargo.