Technical Visit to Hutchison Ports, HIT

By Ir Dr. Irene Poon

The Logistics and Transportation Division (LTD) organized a technical visit to HIT, Terminal 4 in the afternoon of 31 May. The visit was divided into two sessions and led by Mr Dominic Delgado, Assistant Manager of Group Corporate Affairs of Hutchison Ports.   

During the first part of the visit, Mr Delgado introduced the business scope of Hutchison Ports and briefed the recent development of Kwai Tsing terminals.  He explained the new technology adopted at HIT's Terminal 9 North and Terminal 6.  With the remote-controlled rubber-tyred gantry cranes, operators now work in an office environment instead of high up in a crane cabin.  This transformation greatly improved the working environment and industrial safety for crane operators.

Mr Delgado briefed our participants that HIT formed the Hong Kong Seaport Alliance (HKSPA) with three other container terminal operators at the Kwai Tsing container terminals on 1 April 2019.  The alliance consists of HIT, Modern Terminals Limited, COSCO-HIT Terminals and Asia Container Terminals Limited.  The four alliance members turn “terminal neutral” by sharing berths, cranes and yards.  With the combined terminal facilities, the alliance offers a total of 23 berths and is capable of accommodating eight mega-vessels over 18,000 TEUs simultaneously.  Moreover, among them, inter-terminal trucking will be significantly reduced and eliminated, which brings efficiency enhancement and cost savings to shipping lines. 

As regards the second part of the visit, participants went to the control tower and watched one video introducing HIT's next generation terminal management system.  It is a powerful system which controls the entire scope of terminal operations, including ship and yard planning, gate operations, and vessel operations, together with overall operation monitoring, equipment utilisation, productivity, and cost optimisation.  

As thunderstorm signal was hoisted in the afternoon, for the sake of safety, the site tour at the yard terminal was cancelled finally.  The visit ended with a closing ceremony in which representatives from the LTD expressed their gratitude with a souvenir presented to Mr Delgado as a token of appreciation.