Toros Terminal is increasing its Capacity 25%

Toros Ceyhan and Samsun ports besides bulk dry, bulk liquid products service a wide range of cargo from general cargo to numerous kinds of project cargos. We discussed the current situation of Toros terminals and their targets with Hüseyin Bayraklı, executive in charge of Toros’s port operations.

Can you give technical details about your facility? Can you share the past year and this year first term statistics?

Toros Terminal, operator of Toros Ceyhan and Toros Samsun terminals, is part of Toros Tarım Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. Under Tekfen Holding Agricultural Industry Group. Toros is the largest fertilizer producer in Turkey and agricultural industry firm with Adana-Ceyhan, Mersin and Samsun fertilizer production facilities. Toros, active in other agricultural areas besides fertilizer production such as seedling, greenhouse and field seed production, special fertilizers and techno-agriculture, at the same time owns the most important port facilities in the region at Adana-Ceyhan and Samsun fertilizer production facilities. Toros Ceyhan and Samsun ports service a wide range of cargo types besides bulk dry, bulk liquid products, from general cargo to numerous types of project cargos.

Ceyhan Terminal, where water depth is 4.80-13.5 m and maximum 110 thousand DWT ships can dock, contains 8 docking platforms and 1 RO-RO pier at two finger piers. At Toros Ceyhan Terminal, where at the outset coal, fertilizer, mining ores, grain and feed materials, liquid chemicals, fuel and oil products and numerous number of bulk dry and liquid and general cargo products are handled, bulk dry and general cargo annual handling capacity is 15 million tons, and bulk liquid (liquid chemicals, fuel and oil products) products, 13.5 Million tons. At Samsun Terminal, where 2 ships may be docked simultaneously; 50 thousand DWT to the west side of the pier platform made up of 205 meters wide two ship docking piers, and 30 thousand DWT large to the east side that is only connected with pipelines, bulk dry and general cargo handling annual capacity is 4.2 Million tons, and bulk liquid products is 4.5 million m3.

It is expected that at our Ceyhan Terminal, where including Toros’s own cargo, 6 Million tons were handled in 2014, it is expected that this tonnage shall reach 7 Million tons by the end of 2015. As in 2014, in 2015 as well, it is estimated that our Ceyhan Terminal will be among the first 6 bulk cargo ports in terms of handled tonnage among the entire domestic port, terminal and shore facilities. When 2015 Q2 actual amounts are considered, despite the slight contraction in April and May amid elections atmosphere and dramatic increase in USD rate, it is seen that general bulk cargo port operation in Turkey has slightly recovered in June. Due to the impact of Toros Ceyhan Port ‘s position as the 3. largest coal port in Turkey and increase in number of arriving ships accompanied with easing coal prices, Toros’s general terminal operations has experienced an increase by 30% compared with the same period last year, with approximately 4 Million tons of handled cargo. In terms of cargos given only to third parties by port companies, leaving aside their own cargo, Toros Ceyhan is inarguably one of the largest bulk ports in Turkey servicing 3d parties.

In line with increasing loading and discharge demands of industrial and commercial facilities at Ceyhan terminal’s service hinterland, to offer faster service and increase handling capacity of the port and to reduce the period that high tonnage ships (Panamax), which are increasing in number, remain at the port, 2 port cranes of 600 tons/hour discharge capacity each, have entered service in 2011 at pier-5. Procurement process for 2 extra cranes with same specification has been finalized and a contract has been signed with the supplier firm in 2015 January. It is planned that the recently purchased cranes shall enter into service in 2016 at pier-7. Hence the number of cranes at our port shall reach 9 leaving aside the temporary mobile cranes used by our clients from time to time, and bulk dry and general cargo port capacity shall be increased by 25%. Furthermore, to be able to discharge from Suezmax type ships coal dust and industrial coal that are expected to increase due to the imported coal – thermal reactor and cement facilities to be activated in our region, works involving extension of the current pier and activation of pipe conveyor project for faster transfer of products to storage fields, are carried out.

What kind of process do you foresee for marine logistics and port operation in the upcoming term? Do you have investment etc. plans?

First to mention at the outset, in line with the target to turn Ceyhan into a transit energy production and transfer hub, the developments at “ Ceyhan Energy Industrial Zone”, which is planned to build over approximately 16 thousand acres of land, shall impose a very important investment and business burden over the region. At the outset connection of new oil and natural gas pipelines to Ceyhan, new energy production and storage facilities that may be built next to the new refinery and LNG facilities planned in the region according to emerging demand, shall also deeply affect future of Toros’s port operation activity at Ceyhan. In this aspect, the future of Ceyhan terminal is planned along with the region’s future and the investment plans are launched in accordance with this plan. Already, our project involving extension of our pier, where we handle fuel, oil products and liquid chemicals, from the current 100 meters to 2 thousand 300 meters, so as to allow 170 thousand DWT tankers, and the addition of new ship docking platforms, has been approved by the management. However we await the developments at Ceyhan Energy Zone for these new pier investments. With the investments that shall be launched ay Ceyhan Energy Zone; our pier extension project shall also be gradually launched. Extension of liquid pier shall also require investment into new storage tanks and landfilling facilities that shall service these products. With this objective, both our existing port facility and our other roughly 200 acres land at very close distance to our port facility has been registered as industrial and storage area. This additional area has been reserved in a manner suitable for fuel and oil products, new storage facility investments such as LPG and LNG.

2 port cranes, each of 600-tons/ hour discharge capacity has entered into service in 2011 at pier-5. Our procurement process for 2 more cranes with the same specification shall be concluded before end of 2014. Moreover, the closed conveyor investment plans for transportation of coal dust and industrial coal, that are expected to increase due to thermal reactor and cement facilities to be built in the future, from ships to storage fields has been finalized, developments are awaited. Our target is to double our open area storage capacity in the next 5 years including A type general warehouse areas. The vast areas in our port facility are always available for investments in line with developments.

What are the most significant issues for you and the sector? What can you comment about your solution suggestions?

There are some port operations issues where we await a solution as Toros. For instance, the effective period for any communiqué released by administration without any change has decreased to almost 1 year. For this reason legislations have also turned into a jigsaw and in such a legal environment to be able to make investments in an area such as port facilities, where returns are yielded in very long run, it shall not be possible to attract investors. We know that our administration is not pleased either. Actually, on matters concerning our maritime sector and entire sub sectors under maritime, our Chamber of Maritime Commerce’s reports and requests are promptly presented to the administration. Hence, in the conducted surveys, “Bottlenecks regarding Legislation and Public Authorities and problematic areas “ has been the most voiced topic. To continue, “Bottlenecks related to Transportation Infrastructure and problematic areas”, “ Opening growth and expansion areas of ports randomly for settlement without protection”, “ Complex and time-consuming duty procedures obstructing fast service at ports”, “ Shortcomings of investments and incentives” “ High energy costs”, “ Lack of a sustainable National Maritime Policy”, “ Unfair competition led by different practices between public and private ports” are the primary problems of our sector.