The modern port of Singapore traces its origins to the mouth of the Singapore River and it is here that the port developed and flourished for its first 40 years. The River developed as the main commercial centre with a supplementary trading area for small craft at the estuary of the Rochore and Kallang Rivers.
When Stamford Raffles and his party arrived off Singapore on 28 Jan 1819 with the intention of establishing a trading station for the East India Company, one of his earliest tasks was to deploy a survey vessel to conduct a hydrographic survey of the port.
Subsequently the East India Company issued the first of its charts of Singapore Harbour in 1820. Admiralty charts of Singapore waters began to appear in 1840 and, as the Singapore Strait gained increasing importance as the main shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, there followed further surveys and a succession of Admiralty charts for the benefit of merchant shipping.
In 1851 Singapore’s first lighthouse was erected at the eastern approaches to the Singapore Strait and it was aptly named after James Horsburgh, Hydrographer of the East India Company.
The East Indiamen and Opium Clippers from India, the assortment of Chinese Junks from Fukien, Hainan and Kiangsu, the Wangkang and Tope from Thailand and Indo-China, the Palari, Golekkan, Lambo and Leteh-ieteh from the Indonesian Archipelago and the Tongkang and Pinas from the Malay Peninsula, they all came to their respective anchorages off the Singapore River. The cargoes were then transported by lighters to Boat Quay where the greater part of the business was conducted. Boatyards developed along the Telok Ayer Street waterfront. Commercial Square, now known as Raffles Place, developed as an adjunct to Boat Quay and, until the reclamation of Collyer Quay in the 1860s, the buildings and premises reached the waterfront and had their own jetties for passengers and cargoes.
Although Singapore possessed virtually no natural resources and produced no manufactured goods, the exports of Singapore mounted to over $6 million within five years after the port was established. Singapore became a mart for the exchange of the produce from Indo-China, Thailand, the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipelago for the merchandise of India, China and Europe.
The Port of Singapore thus established itself as the entrepot port for the region and it served in this role for over a hundred years.
The administration of the Port was vested with the Master Attendant (Harbour Master) and the first appointment was made on 6 Feb 1819. The incumbent also functioned as Registrar of Imports and Exports and as Post Master in charge of overseas mail. Raffles had declared that “……. the Port of Singapore is a Free Port and the Trade thereof is open to Ships and Vessels of every Nation free of duty equally and alike to all” and this preamble appeared on the earliest regulations for the administration of the port which were promulgated in 1823.
Besides laying down the procedures for reporting the arrivals and departures of ships and their passengers and cargoes, the regulations also stipulated the charges for wooding, watering and ballasting ships calling at the port. Provision was also included for a register of cargo vessels.
Records of local shipping in the Master Attendant’s report book show that for the year 1822 a total of 139 square-rigged vessels entered the Port of Singapore. In 1834 a total of 517 squarerigged vessels totalling 156,513 Net Register Tonnage (NRT) was recorded.
As the traffic of the Port incresed, congestion in the Singapore River set in and the lighterage of cargo became a problem.
The situation was further aggravated in 1845 when the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P & 0) inaugurated its first scheduled steamship service through Singapore. There was no wharfage, and coal, which was used for bunkering the steam vessels of that period, had to be laboriously brought in by sailing lighters and stored in the Singapore River and then brought out again whenever a steamer arrived.
Unfavourable weather conditions would hold up bunkering operations and inevitably several hundred tons of coal were lost when lighters were swamped by heavy seas. The answer lay in a deep water berth and, following a hydrographic survey of Keppel Harbour (then known as New Harbour) in 1849, the P & 0 Company opened their coal-bunkering pier at Tebing Tinggi in 1852. Keppel Harbour which was later destined to become the major gateway of the Port of Singapore was thus opened.
From the onset, ocean shipping favoured the Keppel wharves while coastal shipping continued to anchor off the Singapore River. Transhipment cargo would then be transported overland along the I V2 mile route between Keppel Harbour and Boat Quay.
Development of Keppel Harbour was rapid over the next fifty years. Jardine, Matheson &, the Borneo Co and John Purvis & Son opened up their wharves, warehouses and coal stores along the stretch east of Tanjong Aur (St James). When the Patent Slip & Dock Co opened Singapore’s first dry dock at Pantai Chermin followed by the Tanjong Pagar Dock Co’s Victoria Dock close to the Tanjong Pagar promontary. At Pulau Brani the Bon Accord Dock was opened by the firm of Buyers & Robb while a coal depot was established there by the British Navy.
With these developments some 3,000 ft of wharves became available and as a succession of shipping lines like William Thomson & Co, Messageries Imperiales, Ocean Steam Ship Co., Lloyd Triestino and the Calcutta & Burmah Navigation Co inaugurated regular steamship services through the Port of Singapore, the tonnage of shipping rose from 375,000 NRT in 1860 to 650,000 NRT in 1870.
The greatest impetus to the increase in steamship tonnage was however due to the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869, following which steamships were no longer required to follow the tortuous route round the Cape. By 1870 the aggregate tonnage of steamers calling at the Port had exceeded that of sailing ships. In 1880 the total tonnage of shipping had risen to 1.5 million NRT with steamships aggregating 1.2 million NRT. Then with additional shipping lines like Norddeutscher Lloyd, Rotterdamsche Lloyd, Straits Steamship Co, KQninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij, Wilh. Wilhelmsen, Nippon Yusen Kaisha and the East Asiatic Co inaugurating regular scheduled services, the total shipping tonnage rose to 5.7 million NRT in 1900.
The first was its geographic position. It was in easy reach of the junks from China, Indo-China and Thailand as well as of Perahus from the Indonesian Archipelago. It also lay on the natural shipping route between India and China, and when the ships arrived, it was the logical choice as a bunkering station.
The second factor was its status as a free port, there being no harbour, port, dock, town or light dues, while customs duties were levied only on opium, alcohol, tobacco and petroleum.
The third was a result of the commercial policy of the Government which permitted the mercantile interests a complete freedom of trade.
An added impetus to the growth of the port occurred when the submarine cable linking Singapore with Madras was laid in 1871 and direct telegraphic communication was established via India with Europe. In the following year, telegraphic communication was extended to Australia and Hong Kong.
Until 1874, cargo at the Tanjong Pagar wharves was loaded and unloaded manually at the rate of 200-300 tons per day of 10 hours. In that year steam winches and cranes were installed and working of cargo was increased to 500-800 tons per day. The contract rate of coal bunkering was also fixed at 40 tons per hour.
In 1897 electricity was introduced into the entire wharf frontage, roadways and docks, and working hours were virtually doubled. By comparison, ships at the anchorages could only work their cargoes at the rate of 7 1/2 – 10 tons per daylight hour.
Linking the Keppel wharves with the warehouses on the Singapore River were two earth roads along which the bulk of the cargo was transported by bullock carts. When an increase in the volume of cargo followed the opening of the Suez Canal, a state of serious congestion resulted at the wharves and along the roads. This led to the first phase of the Telok Ayer reclamation in 1879 which, when completed in 1887, extended the foreshore from Telok Ayer Street to Raffles Quay and provided an additional 18 acres of land on which the new access roads between Keppel Harbour and the Singapore River were constructed. At the same time Keppel Road was laid across the mangrove swamps from Tanjong Pagar (later converted to an electric tramway) also ran on this route.
The Tanjong Pagar Dock Co had opened for business in 1866 with a line of wharves measuring a modest 750ft. The Company’s first dry dock, the Victoria Dock, was opened in 1868, and the wharves were then extended to 1.450ft. Faced with competition from the Paten Slip & Dock Co which had opened its second dry dock in 1870, the Company opened its second dock, the Albert Dock, in 1879. A long-term lease on the Jardine Matheson Wharf was then arranged in 1884 and a year later, the Borneo Wharf and Purvis Wharf and their adjoining properties were purchased. The Company was thus operating two dry docks and some 6,600 feet of wharves in 1885.
The Bon Accord Dock had in the meanwhile been leased jointly by the Company and the Patent Slip & Dock and this arrangement continued until 1899 when the two dock companies were amalgamated. With this final accession the Tanjong Pagar Dock Co completed its virtual control over the entire shipping business in Singapore. Besides operating five dry docks, it possessed a wharf frontage of about 1 1/4 miles and warehouses for 200,000 tons of cargo and 250,000 tons of coals, and its properties extended over 375 acres. In 1905 the Company was expropriated by the Government, and control of its facilities subsequently passed over to the Singapore Harbour Board which was constituted under the Straits Settlement Port Ordinance of 1912.
The year 1907 also saw the beginning of the second phase of the Telok Ayer reclamation and the construction of the Offshore Mole that led to the development of yet another gateway for the Port of Singapore. The mile-long Mole, an artificial breakwater of granite rubble, was completed in 1914 and it offered protection for some 40 coastal vessels during the north-east monsoon.
On the landward side, Telok Ayer Basin (now, Telok Ayer Wharves) took form as a line of wharves for coastal vessels with an opening in the centre leading into a tidal basin for lighters. Thus by 1932, when Telok Ayer Basin was formally declared open, the Port of Singapore encompassed the Singapore River, Telok Ayer Basin and Keppel Harbour, and the port limits covered some 36 1/2 sq miles (23,168 acres).
Port facilities in Keppel Harbour were much enhanced by the Singapore Harbour Board. The entire wharf frontage built originally of wood was demolished and replaced with concrete structures. Facilities for bonded storage and cold storage and for the bulk storage of vegetable oil and latex were built. Quick-working portal electric cranes, elevating platform trucks and forklift trucks were introduced for cargo handling. A new dock, the King’s Dock was built. Coaling was mechanised and shore mains were laid for the supply of bunker fuel oil and water. The entire premises were connected by a railway system linked with the Federated Malay States Railways. A floating crane, salvage tug, floating coal plant, fire float and a fleet of harbour tugs, lighters and steel barges were introduced to perform ancillary services. By-laws and a tariff of rates and charges were formally introduced. The port limits were extended and re-defined by the Government in accordance with the Singapore Port Rules of 1936.
The developments which were however to gain the greatest significance in the years ahead were the establishment of oil storage and bunkering facilities of the Asiatic Petroleum Co at Pulau Bukom and the Standard Vacuum Oil Co at Pulau Sebarok and the opening of ship repair facilities at H.M. Naval Dockyard in Sembawang.
During the Pacific War (1941-45) about 70% of the warehouses in Keppel Harbour suffered damage from bombing raids and much of the machinery and equipment in the dockyards fell into disrepair. Port waters became encumbered with sunken craft and maintenance of port installations and ancillary facilities came to a standstill. When the Singapore Harbour Board resumed control in 1946, it was faced not only with the task of physical re-construction but also with the problem of restoring the full complement of portworkers. The port had also to cope with a sudden influx of heavy traffic transporting food and other essentials which were so necessary to alleviate the war time sufferings of the people of Malaysia and Singapore. With the restoration of port facilities and the eventual resumption of passenger and cargo services, the shipping tonnages steadily mounted from 20.4 million NRT in 1947 to 82.9 million NRT in 1963.
On 1 Apr 1964, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) was formed to take over the functions, assets and liabilities of the Singapore Harbour Board. At that time, its facilities were confined to some five kilometres of wharves and 160,000 square metres of transit sheds and warehouses at Telok Ayer and Keppel Harbour. The main type of cargo then handled was break-bulk general cargo, with small volumes of bulk vegetable oil and latex.
The whole idea of container berths, let alone ports, was deeply controversial even in the USA and Europe at that time. When PSA decided in 1966 to build its first container terminal, not a single shipping line had committed to building container ships for the Europe-Far East run.
Lengthy discussions with the World Bank ensued, and a loan was secured to begin work on the East Lagoon container complex. The most significant milestone took place on 23 June 1972, when a container berth was opened at Tanjong Pagar (at the East Lagoon).
The M.V. Nihon, arriving with 300 containers from Rotterdam, was greeted by a crowd of more than 1,000 excited port workers and officials. With that, Singapore became the first port in Southeast Asia to accommodate a third generation container vessel, making it an important link in the new chain of global container ports. It also marked the beginning of containerisation, which propelled Singapore and PSA into becoming one of the global leaders of port management over the next few decades.
The container trade got off to a slow but sure start in the 1970s. However, it was in the 1980s that rapidly expanding world trade provided a great boost to Singapore’s ambitions as a global container port. In 1982, PSA in Singapore handled 1 million TEUs of containers; this was quickly followed in 1986, when PSA handled 2 million TEUs and 1989, which saw volumes rising to 4 million TEUs. PSA had to cope with double-digit growth throughout the decade and the focus then was how to ramp up capacity and productivity quickly to ensure good port service level.
While PSA started out serving mainly the interests cargo volumes of Singapore, it soon pioneered the handling of transhipment business as a business in a mega scale. The whole region, comprising, Southeast Asia and beyond, formed PSA’s transhipment hinterland. Shipping lines started asking PSA to help manage the distribution of their containers to the regional ports and they demanded for even greater certainty in terms of speed, reliability and efficiency.
As the port container volumes kept on growing, PSA added a second terminal (Keppel) in the 1980s, and then a third Terminal (Brani) in the early 90s. In 1990, PSA’s annual throughput hit 5.22 million TEUs, making Singapore the world’s busiest container port. The volumes doubled four years later to 10 million TEUs. By the year 2000, when it officially opened its new terminal at Pasir Panjang, PSA was handling 17 million TEUs at its container terminals in Singapore.
In parallel to the rapid expansion of its container operations in Singapore, PSA also embarked on a series of corporate developments which led to its current status as one of the world’s leading port operators.
In 1996, PSA ventured outside of Singapore with its first international port project in Dalian, China.
On 1 October 1997, PSA corporatised and was succeeded by PSA Corporation Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings. PSA’s regulatory functions were taken over by a new statutory board, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.
In line with the trend of globalisation, PSA established a presence in Europe with the acquisition of terminals in Italy in1998. India was added to PSA’s portfolio of port projects in the same year; Portugal and Korea soon followed in 1999 and 2000 respectively.
2002 saw PSA take a giant step forward in its internationalisation drive when it bought majority stakes in the Belgium premier terminal operator Hesse-Noord Natie which operated terminals in Antwerp and Zeebrugge.
In order to ensure its long-term competitiveness, PSA started a series of key initiatives to transform itself into a global terminal operator. It divested non-core businesses, trimmed its workforce, adopted a leaner and more flexible cost structure, and re-organised its corporate structure.
In December 2003, PSA International Pte Ltd was incepted to become the main holding company for the PSA Group. As steward for all PSA subsidiaries around the world, PSA International would provide greater strategic, financial and management flexibility, as well as seamless Group synergy to create and enhance value.
Just as importantly, this organisational change was effected to grow the Group’s core business in port management and to enable the Group to respond more quickly to the rapidly changing business world. Continuing on its globalisation strategy, PSA added Thailand in 2003 and Japan in 2004 to its ports portfolio.
Marking the Group’s first foray into the Americas was PSA’s port investment in Panama in 2007. In the same year, Vietnam and Turkey were included in PSA’s expanded global footprint, followed by Argentina in 2008.
In 2011, PSA expanded its global portfolio into the Arabian Gulf with its first port project in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
PSA continued to expand its presence in Latin America with the addition of Colombia in 2013.
