On 8 February 2023, Northport (Malaysia) Bhd (Northport), a member of MMC Group, officially received nine units of new Rubber Tyred Gantry (RTG) cranes. The new terminal equipment is the first batch of a total of 23 units of diesel-powered RTGs and 11 units of electrified RTGs or eRTGs purchased by Northport from Mitsui E&S Machinery Co., Ltd. (Mitsui E&S).

The First Secretary of Japan Embassy in Malaysia, Saito Hiroaki was present to witness the handover of the RTGs from the General Manager, Cranes & Systems Division of Mitsui E&S, Atsufumi Takahashi to the Chief Executive Officer of Northport, Dato’ Azman Shah Mohd Yusof.

“The port congestion in early 2021 and 2022 as well as anticipation of a consistently high container and conventional cargo handling at Northport had triggered our move to reconfigure and restructure our terminal to improve our port capacity. The terminal reconfiguration plan involves the conversion and development of new container yard and acquisition of new port equipment. The move is necessary as we have been handling high volumes of container cargo in recent years and we foresee that this upward trend will continue in the coming years,” said Dato’ Azman.

In line with the company’s environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) initiatives, Northport will increase its environmental friendly port equipment through the purchase of 11 units of new eRTG cranes for its new container yard designated as the J Block. The new eRTGs will be fully delivered by December 2023. Northport was the first port in Malaysia ever to use eRTGs back in 2013.

Northport had back-to-back record breaking achievement in the last two years. In 2021, Northport set a remarkable record-breaking performance for its container business segment after successfully handling 3,324,364 TEUs of containers, the company’s all-time high container handling in a single year. Last year, Northport recorded 11,115,670 Freight Weight Tonnes (FWTs) of cargo throughput, the highest achievement of conventional cargo handling in a single year since the formation of Northport through the merger of Klang Container Terminal (KCT) and Klang Port Management (KPM) in 2000.