Larger vessels require deeper ports and investments in specialised container cranes
Sea port operators in Africa are experiencing growing strains on their infrastructure following a sharp increase in the size of ships calling on their ports.
The operators of ports such as Mombasa are now under pressure to modernise and expand their capacity or lose business.
“Ships are getting bigger, thus increasing carrying capacities and efficiency, but exerting pressure on port infrastructure to adequately support the calls,” said Mr Gichiri Ndua, managing director of Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), which runs the port of Mombasa.
“Out of the 23 ships scheduled for delivery through 2012, 12 will exceed 100,000 gross tonnes,” he said.
A recent survey by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) showed that between July 2004 and July 2010 the average vessel size grew by 65 per cent.
“Larger vessels require deeper ports and investments in specialised container cranes,” UNCTAD says in a logistics report for the third quarter of 2010.
“In 77 countries, the largest ship in July 2010 was larger than the largest ship in 2009; in 43 countries the vessel size has remained unchanged; and in 42 countries, the largest vessels deployed in 2010 are smaller than the largest vessels that provided services one year earlier.”
The growth in the size of the vessels is largely reflective of the surge in global trade volumes in the last few years.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) says world trade grew sharply in 2010 following a record-breaking 14.5 per cent climb in the volume of exports.
“On the positive side, larger ships and a higher total TEU (twenty foot equivalent units) carrying capacity can cater for the growing global trade in manufactured goods, and economies of scale help to reduce costs. On the other hand, the larger ships also pose a challenge to smaller ports as regards the necessary investments in infrastructure,” UNCTAD said.
The port of Mombasa too witnessed increased activity following the climb in global trade in 2010.
Statistics released last week by KPA showed that container traffic through the port, that also serves several countries in the region, grew by 12 per cent in 2010 on the back of a resurgent global economy.
Traffic through Mombasa port is watched as an indicator of activity in the region’s economies.
Apart from Kenya, it handles cargo to and from Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.
The facility handled 695,600 20-foot equivalent container units (TEU), up from 618,816 in 2009 and way above its designed capacity of 250,000 TEU a year.
Transit traffic -destined for countries other than Kenya -rose 0.4 million tonnes to 5.3 million in 2010.
Mr Ndua said with growing volumes of trade and size of ships handlers of ports in the region would have to undertake urgent expansion and modernisation to remain competitive.
In August 2010, KPA claimed that the increased length of vessels owned by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) had caused hitches at the port.
Source: Business Daily Africa