Singapore Maritime Week 2018: MPA signs Tuas Terminal Phase 2 contract agreement, autonomous vessels MOU

THE MARITIME and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) announced the signing of the Tuas Terminal Phase 2 contract at the Singapore Maritime Technology Conference (SMTC) on Wednesday.

The S$1.46 billion contract was awarded to a consortium of Dutch dredging giant Boskalis , Penta Ocean Construction Company and Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company.

The project will include the dredging of the Tuas basin, construction of wharf structures and reclamation of 387 hectares of land, which will be bounded by 9.1 kilometres of cassion walls (excavation support structure).

Construction of Phase 2 will commence at a later date, but it is scheduled to be completed in the mid-2020s, said MPA.

MPA also said that more than 70 per cent of Phase 1 of Tuas Terminal has been completed as of now. When the entire Tuas Terminal is completed, it will have a total capacity of up to 65 million 20-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) annually.

At the SMTC, MPA also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Keppel Offshore & Marine (Keppel O&M) and Technology Centre for Offshore and Marine, Singapore (TCOMS) to jointly develop autonomous vessels.

These autonomous vessels will be used for harbour operations, such as channelling, berthing , mooring and towing operations. Keppel O&M will be using its remote vessel monitoring and analytics programme, VesselCare, as the base platform. The programme is able to perform data consolidation, condition based monitoring and maintenance, mining and analytics of vessels.

MPA also signed an MOU with Finnish tech group Wärtsilä to promote the development of maritime technologies, and renewed another MOU with the Research Council of Norway for maritime research and development, education and training. This marks the seventh term between the two organisations, and the term will last for three years till 2021.

MPA also signed a memorandum of intent with eight classification societies to develop the Singapore Maritime Data Hub, which will serve as a one-stop centralised data repository and collaborative platform for the maritime community.

It also awarded the Maritime Innovation and Technology (MINT) Fund to the consortium of ST Electronics and Norwegian maritime surveillance solutions provider Kongsberg Norcontrol for its next generational vessel traffic management system innovation programme (NGVTMS).

On the sidelines, NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of National University of Singapore (NUS) and a partner of MPA, also signed a MOU with Dutch maritime-only accelerator PortXL, to develop the maritime innovation ecosystem of Singapore.

A total of seven agreements were signed at SMTC on Wednesday, involving MPA, local and international partners.