By FARA AISYAH / Pic By TMR File

Johor Port Bhd, a member of MMC Corp Bhd, has signed a marine services agreement with Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s (Petronas) subsidiary Petronas LNG Ltd (PLL) last week, for the provisioning of marine services and attractive tariff for vessels that receive gassing up and cooling down (GUCD) services at PLL’s Regasification Terminal Pengerang.

The collaborative effort between Johor Port and PLL is aimed to encourage more vessel operators and owners to utilise the service at Pengerang terminal, taking advantage of its strategic location and close proximity to shipyards in Malaysia and Singapore.

“Johor Port has wel ltrained and experienced pilots to handle all types of vessels, and well equipped with supporting resources like tug boats, mooring boats and mooring gangs that are at par with other developed ports in the region,” Johor Port CEO Shahrull Allam Shah Abdul Halim said in a statement.

The GUCD is a specialised service of bringing the storage tanks on liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier vessels to a natural environment and cooling it down to cryogenic temperature (minus 160°C).

The GUCD process is a requirement for LNG vessels to ensure safe loading of the next LNG cargo.

Johor Port currently provides a range of marine services for all types of vessels including tug and pilotage, berthing and unberthing, shifting, oil rig movement/oil rig positioning and repositioning, dockwise offload and onload, ship-to-ship transfer, dead ship tow, anchoring and lay-up, as well as docking and undocking of very large cruise carriers. It has an existing working relationship with Petronas dating back to 2015 in the Material Offloading Facility project in Teluk Ramunia and Tanjung Setapa.

Johor Port is also currently operating and managing the Petronas Solid Product Terminal in Pengerang which includes the provision of operating equipment, systems and manpower.