Plipdeco’s Roger
Traboulay: Turning
things around at Pt Lisas port
PORT SPAIN
Petroleumworldtt.com
02 17 08
The Government has given no precise timetable
on its plans for the construction of a mega port
east of Port-of-Spain. However, its stated intention
to replace the existing Port-Of-Spain port with
a modern facility is enough reason for the smaller
port at Pt Lisas to begin getting its act together.
Roger
Traboulay, newly installed president of the Pt
Lisas Industrial Port Development Corporation
(Plipdeco), is the man who will have to advance
Plipdeco’s plans for the modernisation of
the Pt Lisas port.
And
he sees the Uriah Butler Interchange and Port-of-Spain’s
skyscrapers as strong indicators of the Government’s
intent to carry through with its plans for the
relocation of the city port.
“If you look at the interchange, for instance,
at the Churchill Roosevelt Highway, that took a
lifetime and got very messy politically, it’s
still being built.”
In
2007, Pt Lisas port moved 140,000 containers
or 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), compared
to
the Port of Port-of-Spain’s 400,000 TEUs.
Traboulay
said that the Port-Of-Spain port —managed
by the English company Portia Management Services—has
been adding cranes and being smart about its use
of space.
“Plipdeco
is doing some of the things Port-of-Spain is
doing.”
Before Traboulay joined Plipdeco, the board agreed
to borrow TT$100 million for a package of equipment
including a ship-to-shore gantry crane, rubber-tyred
gantry cranes and an assortment of other cranes.
The major item in the package, a US$10 million
ship-to-shore gantry crane, was unloaded this week
and its installation is to begin this weekend.
“A port always needs as much space and cranes
as it could get,” Traboulay said, adding
that, “Berth 5 was built but was not equipped
with the number of cranes it should have.
“As
a bigger port is being built, Plipdeco would
need to know where it fits.”
Ticking off some of the priorities which will
demand his attention, Traboulay said Plipdeco has
received approval to reclaim 3.5 hectares of land.
Having more storage space lowers costs for importers
and consumers and being able to locate a container
by computer improves efficiency, he said.
“We
can move containers around. We know where the
containers are at all times. Everything
is on one big spreadsheet.
“It’s
all done with GPS on the computer.”
The turnaround process
During
a mid-morning drive through the Pt Lisas port
in Traboulay’s black PCF company Benz,
the president pointed to container trucks lined
up in “fish-bone style.”
The new arrangement is part of the thrust to greater
efficiency.
“Before,
trucks were all jammed up and hustling and horns
honking and disorganised.”
While the Port of Port-of-Spain has turned to
Portia Management Services in its drive to modernisation
and efficiency, Pt Lisas has retained SSA Marine
of the US.
SSA’s
job is to steer the port to greater efficiency,
and to train its managers.
“We are the smaller port, but operationally,
we try to be an efficient port,” Traboulay
said.
As part of this effort , Pt Lisas has reduced
the number of empty containers stored on its compound
by almost 50 per cent, from 2,500 to 1,200.
Increasing the penalties charged consignees for
unclaimed containers penalties helped to reduce
the pileup.
Traboulay said due to the number of empty containers
on this side of the world, shipping lines will
put containers anywhere they can because they are
looking for free storage. The port is now much
stricter on the amount of time containers are allowed
to remain on the port.
Safety issues
Plipdeco has instructed importers of used cars
that its workers would only offload vehicles that
are partially suspended.
Traboulay said importers have been told that if
the trunks of vehicles being imported could be
lifted up and they have wheels attached, port employees
will handle them.
“We
made sure that at no time our guys were ever
under the car, that they were trained, supervised,
and we used a forklift to suspend the arch, so
after you suspend the car below, you use the forklift
to hold it up before we unshackle.”
He
said long rods are used to knock out shocks and
cut ropes if workers have to enter an area
of a container that’s considered unsafe.
Those practices were presented to the Occupational
Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) two weeks ago.
The offloading of used cars was made an issue
after the Port of Port-of-Spain told importers
that the practice of having the cars suspended
inside containers was dangerous for port workers.
Traboulay
said Plipdeco submitted its procedures to OSH,
which made some recommendations, and signed
off on them saying, “go ahead and continue
unloading cars.”
He said Plipdeco has unloaded about 2,000 containers
over the last five years or so without an issue.
“Pt
Lisas being an industrial port handling very
heavy cargo, the guys here saw handling a
car as no big deal.
“But you don’t want something to go
wrong and people saying you’re not being
careful with safety. Up to this morning, OSHA said
go ahead.”
He said OSHA realised that the position it took
was a bit tough and it got quite a lot of negative
flak for it.
“I
was trying to have a more balanced, open-minded
approach to it. If you stop the importation of
(foreign used) cars in this manner, the price goes
up.”
He
said the port doesn’t want stock where
supervisors suspect the cars are facing the front
of the container.
“If it’s banged up, we stop. If it’s
opened and not stored how we told them to bring
it in, we stop and say we’re not unstocking
this container.
“If
we see something broken or shifted before we
go there, we just back off and say we are not
doing it any more.”
Scanning US-bound Cargo
Traboulay said that prior to Carnival, US Customs
officials visited the Pt Lisas port and the Comptroller
of Customs about adding scanners for containers
destined for the US.
The installation of scanners is one of the measures
the US has insisted on post-9/11.
“We’ll
have to get X-ray machines and have to make sure
that any container going
to the United States has to be scanned.
“If it’s not scanned, then that cargo
has to be sent to a port that has that capability—which
might be Puerto Rico or Jamaica, for example—before
it gets to the United States.”
The year 2012 is the deadline given for the installation
of the scanners.
Exports to the US, though, are limited.
Traboulay
estimates that a quarter of the Pt Lisas/Port-of-Spain
ports’ TEUs might be exports, and of that,
about one-eight may go to the US.
New glassworks to begin production in 18 months
Peake Industries Ltd is constructing a US$40 million
glassworks plant at Hamilton Siding, Wallerfield.
The plant will be fired with natural gas.
Production is expected to begin within 18 months.
Construction is underway on lands leased for 30
years to the Peake Group of Companies by the Ministry
of Agriculture, Land and Marine Resources.
The land was leased after much government lobbying
and an extensive search for land on industrial
estates.
The plant will make bottles to be filled with
beer and rum for local and regional markets.
It’s
understood that the plant will have about half
the production capacity of the ANSA
McAL-owned Carib Glassworks in Champs Fleurs.
An industry official said with companies such
as Solo are importing bottles from Central America
and the St Lucia-based bottlers of Heineken are
getting their bottles from Holland, so there is
a need for the production of bottles in the region.
San Fernandian Roger Traboulay, 42, has been president
of the Pt Lisas Industrial Port Development Corporation
Ltd (Plipdeco) for just under four months.
Previously
managing director of Peake Technologies group,
Traboulay admitted that joining Plipdeco
was an “odd decision” as he was certainly “very
comfortable and solid” in a progressive,
solid company, “enjoying myself.
“I was always attracted—like most
engineers—to see what the industrial estate
and the energy sector was all about.”
Traboulay said even though Plipdeco is not an
energy company, he was aware that it had changed
its top management and that a turnaround was in
effect.
“That sounded quite challenging. It’s
a big challenge because coming out of a comfort
zone, I’d drive five minutes to work and
drop my (two) kids (off to school) in the process,
to come down here. I live in Port-of-Spain now.
It’s a big change.”
Among the positions he held in the Peake group
was that of director/general manager of Peake Industries
Ltd, which manufacturers and exports air conditioners.
Traboulay
joined Peake in 1988 when the T&T
economy was in a downturn.
“You’re in a recession, so you’re
happy to get any job.
“Even
though I did electrical engineering, they had
asked for an air conditioning engineer.
“I
applied for everything, so when they responded,
I was so happy and I went to work there.”
He stayed for 19 years.
An electrical and computer engineer by training,
Traboulay joined Peake as a project engineer.
His
job involved the design and installation of commercial/industrial
air conditioning systems
for hotels, airports and hospitals in T&T and
regionally.
The
July-September 2007 issue of the in-house publication
Plipdeco News, credited Traboulay with
expanding Peake Technologies’ sales and capacity,
improving operational efficiency and introducing
new technologies.
“Internationally, Mr Traboulay has extensive
experience in procurement, logistics, export and
distribution throughout the Americas, Europe and
Asia,” the report read.
It
continued: “Mr Traboulay has always had
a keen eye for new business. He helped the Peake
Group to develop the blueprint to construct a new
glassworks plant which is now under construction.”
He has worked with the Government lobbying for
approvals and concessions for the air conditioning
and glass plants, and was involved in free trade
negotiations involving Venezuela, the Dominican
Republic and Costa Rica.
Traboulay
has an executive masters in business administration
from the University of the West
Indies.—Sandra Chouthi
‘Port
is small but operational’
Plipdeco: Improving profitability
Unaudited consolidated financial statements for
the nine months ended September 30, 2007, for the
Pt Lisas Industrial Development Corporation Ltd
show:
profit after tax and excluding fair value gains
of $12.5 million
that was a 13 per cent increase compared to the
same period in 2006
group turnover increased by 15 per cent or $22.9
million due to an increase in port revenue resulting
from higher container throughput and increases
in general cargo handled.
Story
by Sandra Chouthi from The Trinidad Guardian
- sandy9@ttol.co.tt
The
Trinidad Guardian
Thursday
14th February, 2008
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