PETALING JAYA: Operational agility and timely capacity expansion have allowed Westports Holdings Bhd
to effectively navigate a fresh wave of severe global port congestion, according to UOB Kay Hian (UOBKH) Research.
The research house reiterated its “hold” call on the port operator with an unchanged target price of RM6.50, noting that its strong fundamentals are currently fully priced in.
Global supply chain bottlenecks surged sharply in recent months after seven consecutive typhoons repeatedly disrupted major Chinese ports, stranding 4.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) or 12.6% of the global container fleet at sea.
In high-performance terminals, recovery from such disruptions is highly dependent on spare capacity.
“According to Drewry, a container terminal (CT) running at 90% utilisation takes around a week to recover from a single day of disruption, whereas a CT at 75% utilisation takes just two days to recover.
“Repeated disruptions on a high-performance terminal will make queues and schedule disruptions compound,” UOBKH Research said.
Global port congestion has hit a new high since the pandemic, UOBKH Research added, at 4.3 million TEUs of stranded volume (12.6% of global TEU fleet) waiting to berth. Consequently, schedule reliability fell sharply in July 2026.
Despite operating with tighter spare capacity than its peers, Westports successfully managed its yard density down from a peak of 90% to 95% in late July to 80% by mid-August.
This bottleneck relief was driven by the on-time rollout of its new ground slots expansion, completed maintenance dredging, and accelerated government removal of stranded e-waste containers.
While the consolidation of Johor Port and Port of Tanjung Pelepas into a single “Port of Johor” entity bumped it up to 11th globally in volume rankings of 15.11 million TEUs in 2025, UOBKH emphasises that this does not threaten Westports’ market share.
“The gateway volumes commanded by Johor Port is merely 20% of Westports. In the long term, Westports 2 (WP2) and Pulau Carey will set the tone for Port Klang’s adaptation in the future port landscape.”
Looking ahead, Westports remains a key beneficiary of global trade rerouting and tariff adjustments, but the next major structural growth catalyst hinges on its WP2 expansion, which is projected to become operational around 2028.
UOBKH maintained its earnings forecasts for 2026, 2027 and 2028 based on projected volume growths of 2%, 5%, and 3% respectively.
