The Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) in an advisory said it will resume receiving empty containers for exports and double transactions starting July 13.
MICT on July 4 issued a notice to clients that it would temporarily stop receiving empties for exports starting July 7 as its yard was full.
“Empties linked to vessel must be evacuated to the intended 1st available ship. Any shut out exceeding 15% of those nominated to vessel will result in suspension of empty receiving privileges for that shipping line,” the July 8 notice said.
The shut-out list is issued once a vessel’s loading operations are completed. It details the containers that were received for the vessel but were not loaded on board, for the container ship owner to reconcile total exports received for a vessel and those actually loaded.
MICT said a separate advisory or notice of resumption will be sent this week “under very controlled terms” to carriers with “low inventory or who have exerted all efforts to reposition empties over the last few weeks.”
A further notice will be sent to shipping lines that cannot avail themselves of the empty-receiving privilege yet “due to their excess number of overstaying empty containers in MICT,” the advisory stated.
According to Association of International Shipping Lines (AISL) president Patrick Ronas, there were about 11,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) empty containers at Manila ports as of July 11, down 21% from 14,000 TEUs on July 7.
To ease port congestion, the Philippine Ports Authority announced that MICT mother firm International Container Terminal Services, Inc. and shipping lines agreed to transfer empties to the Subic port, operated by ICTSI subsidiary Subic Bay International Terminal Corp, starting August 10.
Ronas told PortCalls AISL is seriously looking at the Subic option but that there is no final decision yet on the subject. – Roumina Pablo
Photo courtesy of ICTSI
