Additional Beira gantries scheduled for next April

Beira will have two additional post-Panamax gantries fitted with twinlift spreaders by April 2013, according to Felix Machado, marketing and sales manager of Cornelder de Moçambique – the port operator. This will bring the total to four gantries, which means that the port will be able to handle two vessels at a time with two dedicated gantries each, with a targeted productivity of 25 gross crane moves per hour. The existing two ship-toshore container gantry cranes have been refurbished. They can handle 42 metric tons with a spreader, and 50 metric tons with a hook. Land-side, the number of container slots has been increased to accommodate 11 400 TEUs a day. The port has already renewed its fleet of container handling equipment, and is confident that it will be able to handle the additional traffic, he says. Flow in and out of the container terminal was improved through the construction of a US$3-million entrance and exit gate and adjacent marshalling area for trucks. This has reduced congestion at the main gate and allows for growth in container traffic, he says. Fast-growing economies in neighbouring landlocked states are increasing demand for shipping services through Beira. The port is 319 kilometres from the Zimbabwe border at Machipanda, and 685km by road from Malawi. By mid-2013 the port will also have its own dedicated maintenance dredger, which will ensure that the channels remain open for the larger container vessels. Mozambique Ports and Railways (CFM) has obtained financing of about Є40 million through the Danish International Development Agency (Danida) to acquire the purpose-built dredger. Vessels of 60 000 tons were able to call on the port from June 2011 for the first time in 28 years following a twoyear Є43-million dredging programme financed through the Mozambican government via Mozambique’s CFM port and railways company, the European Investment Bank, the Netherlands-based ORET Fund, and the Dutch company Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors. The project involved dredging a total of 27.5km of the approaches to the port and to a width of 230 metres and a depth of 11 metres. The Punge River on which the port is situated deposits some two million tons of silt a year. Machado expects to see more lines calling on the port as it regains its status as a gateway to the sub-region. The Container and General Cargo Terminal of Beira Port are managed through a joint venture between CFM and Cornelder Holding – based in Holland. At present Maersk, MSC, DAL and CMA CGM/Delmas operate services to Beira. “Once the shipping lines see the new gantries in operation, the growth will happen naturally,” he says. CAPTION 1 Containers stacked high in the port of Beira. CAPTION 2 Felix Machado… ‘growth will happen naturally.’