Cape Town port upgrade begins
Transnet port terminals has started work on a R4,2bn construction programme to nearly double the capacity at the Cape Town container terminal by 2012, Oscar Borchards, the executive in charge of the city’s container terminal, said last week.
Borchards said contractors moved on to the site last Monday and that dredging of the Ben Schoeman Basin, a key component of the expansion, had begun.
The plan is to increase the depth of the basin from about 10m to 15,5m to attract larger vessels to the harbour. The aim is also to increase the handling capacity of the harbour from 740000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units, the standard length of a container) a year to 1,4m TEUs within the next five years.
The three-part programme includes the deepening of the basin, quay refurbishment with new cranes and the reconfiguration of the terminal to increase efficiencies.
The refurbishment of the harbour will run in tandem with its reconfiguration and will include the assembly of massive ship-to-shore cranes and converting the terminal to a rubber-tyre gantry system from the straddle carriers now in use.
Nonessential infrastructure and buildings will be demolished, the terminal reconfigured to maximise the container stack capacity, and specialised equipment procured.
Borchards said part of the planning, which had “taken years” to reach this stage, was to maintain productivity at the container terminal, the country’s second largest. This would be achieved by diverting container vessels with their own ships’ gear to Cape Town’s multipurpose terminal.
Eskom has undertaken a project to significantly upgrade electricity supply to the harbour.
