Non-POL ships berthing: TAP lock horns with Karachi Port

Karachi: The Terminals Association of Pakistan (TAP) has complained of facing difficulties in getting berths for non-POL cargo vessels especially molasses at bulk oil pier no. 2 and dry berth no. 1.

Akhtar Sultan, spokesman for the association, in a statement issued here on Tuesday pointed out despite the full inauguration of the BOP No. 2 by the Prime Minister on December 3, 2005, it was not fully and technically complete to handle bulk liquid cargo such as molasses, edible oil, non-edible oils etc.

He further said that the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) was giving priority to such non-POL exportable products, which has no priority by the Ministry of Ports and Shipping, resulting in delays and demurrage to exportable molasses tankers.

He alleged that the KPT officials were not responding to correspondence made by the association and were reluctant to respond to the scores of approaches made to them in-person and telephonically.

However, a KPT spokesman on Tuesday said that the port had completed the OP-II at a huge cost of Rs1.5 billion and had also fixed most of the trestles and supports needed for laying down pipelines.

He further said that the members of the TAP continued to insist on providing them berths at dry berth no. 1 where temporary arrangements were made to accommodate liquid bulk cargo. Since the OP-II has been commissioned there is no more need to allow liquid bulk cargo to be berthed at this facility, the KPT spokesman added.

He further said that there was sudden increase in dry bulk cargo at the port and the dry berth No. 1 was being used and occupied by vessels bring in dry cargo.

Despite the fact, he said that working was still going on for fixing trestles and supports but many TAP members had already laid down their pipes. In total, he said, 37 lines had to be installed for non-POL products but so far only seven to eight pipelines had been laid by the TAP members.

The spokesman also denied that only non-POL vessels had to wait for long and incur huge demurrage and added that other vessels carrying containers and bulk dry cargo also had to wait for days to catch up with their turn. Therefore, no discrimination was being done with any category of port users.

“We agree that some delay had been made by our contractor in completing trestles and supports but it is equally true that some of the TAP members have already laid down their pipelines where work was complete,” asserted the KPT spokesman.