Westports up 8%

News 8 Feb 2016 by WCN Editorial

Container throughout at Westports Malaysia grew 8% to 9.05M TEU in 2015

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Westport’s transhipment business at Port Klang grew 11% last year, and now comprises 72.5% of the terminals container business. Gateway import/export cargo was up 1% on the full year, but declined 6% in 4Q 2015. Westports also handles bulk cargo, and total tonnage dropped 1% to 10.23Mt.

Results by trade lane show Intra-Asia cargo as the largest market, growing 3% to 4.3M TEU, while business in the Asia-Europe trades grew 17% to 2.29M TEU. The fastest growing trade lane was actually Asia-America, which was up 191% in 4Q 2015 and 131% over the full 2015 year. However, at just over 500,000 TEU Asia-America is still a relatively small market for Westports, accounting for 6% of its overall business.

On the revenue side, Westports implemented a tariff revision for containers in 4Q, and revenue rose 9% in that quarter. The cost of sales, however, increased by 22% in the same period due to “marketing costs” associated with the increase. Over the full year revenue from container services rose 5%.

Westports continues to progress its CT8 expansion plan, and the first 300m of 600m of new berth are scheduled to be operational in mid 2016, complete with four new 52m high STS cranes. The second phase includes another 300m of berth, a new gate complex and other equipment, and is scheduled to be operational by 2017. Once the whole project is complete capacity will increase to 13.5M TEU.

For 2016, Westports expects “lower but positive growth compared to last year”. It also signalled another tariff revision due to the “container terminal’s higher Capex requirements”.