Durban will run out of space
by 2010 – that’s official!
TERRY HUTSON
ONE YEAR ago FTW reported in the 2 006 annual
Durban and Richards Bay feature that a dig-out
port might be Durban’s only option of finding ways
to increase capacity, particularly for containers and
motor vehicles.
Twelve months later the process of preparing
to excavate much of the Bayhead and extend the
harbour has got under way and the first public
meeting has been held to inform stakeholders of
what lies ahead and to prepare the way for an
environmental impact assessment (EIA).
The crux of the matter is that Durban is about
to run out of space. Not maybe and not later but
within two and a half years – as early as 2 010 and
that’s official. This frightening forecast is based on
some fairly conservative estimates of growth. If
the port continues to experience the almost 2 0%
container growth of 2 006/07 then it might come
even sooner.
Fortunately a lot of hard work has been going
on behind the scenes as port engineers and other
planners put their heads together to look for
solutions, with the dig-out option at Bayhead
having become the only likely short-term one.
Hence the public meeting held in May in which
the news was broken publicly for the first time, and immediate action. Last year the port
handled 2.335 million TEUs, up 19.4% on 2005.
Some relief is in sight with Pier 1 Container
Terminal which comes on stream at the end of
2007, adding a further 720 000 TEUs to the port’s
supposed capacity. But if Durban continues to
grow at 20% the port will have added another 10
million TEUs within two years, bringing the total
to 3.36m TEUs – beyond Durban’s said capacity.
And this in 2009.
Of course the port has for some years now
continued to handle in excess of what is said to
be its design capacity – this has been achieved
by working smarter and finding better ways to
operate the terminal. It may be called upon again.
But even at much more moderate growth
rates the port will still reach the 3m mark before
2010 – hence the urgency of seeking approval for
the process of digging out part of the Bayhead
and creating new terminal berths and stacking
areas. However a lot of regulatory work remains
to be done before that is possible, which includes
getting past the EIA.
Port users will recall that it was an EIA in
1996/97 that stopped the then Portnet’s plans
of extending the Durban Container Terminal onto
the central sandbanks. More recently it was an
EIA that stopped Cape Town’s container terminal
expansion dead in its tracks, so don’t look at the
Bayhead proposal as a dead cert. Not yet.
The cost to Durban from not being able to
provide the required container capacity in the
port amounts to an estimated R18 billion of
local expenditure annually. Progressively Durban
would lose its position as the region’s premier
port.
At Durban container handling is seen as the
preferred activity of
the port, followed by
the petro-chemical
and motor vehicle
activity, although
there is also
recognition that the
port’s diversified
activities should also
be retained.
For instance
Durban handles as
much breakbulk
cargo as all six other
ports combined
and the attendant warehousing and logistics
businesses are essential ingredients of both the
port and city.
Provided the dig-out process gets the goahead,
the first step will be to begin widening
the channels leading to the Bayhead, reaching
past Maydon Wharf on one side and DCT on
the other. The existing turning basin will have
to be widened with dredging and excavation of
a large new basin extending down the course of
the Umhlatuzana River almost as far as Edwin
Swales VC Drive to follow. Land on either side
of this basin will be developed as new container
terminals.
To give some idea of the magnitude of this
project, the Bayhead terminal will have eight
berths each of around 300m in length, capable
of handling among the
largest ships likely to
come to South Africa
and a capacity of some
5 million TEUs. To place
this in perspective the
existing DCT has seven
berths and the new
Ngqura terminal just
two, with another two
in the pipeline.
The plan is first to
complete the terminal
on the west side of
the new basin with
the other side closest to the Bluff following
later. But before this can happen the railway
marshalling yards in Bayhead will have to be
relocated, along with a variety of tenants on the
former Spoornet-occupied land.
Also facing relocation are the many Bayhead
tenants facing onto the harbour and along
Bayhead Road, including the ship repair and
building firms. Some of them have been here for
many years and are an indispensable part of
although FTW readers got a look at the proposal
back in June last year.
The unprecedented growth that both Durban
and the country is experiencing requires urgent the port of Durban – and there is no
clarity yet as to what the future has
to offer for them. What seems certain
is that many will have to relocate or
close down although reconfiguration
of the new basin dig-out may allow
sections
of this
industry to
remain.
As
planned
now
the new
container
terminal
will only be completed for shipping in
2014, and from 2010 Transnet expects
that some overflow of containers will
have to be handled at other ports.
Ngqura is seen as the most suitable to
benefit from this with feeder vessels
moving the containers on to other
ports including Durban. However,
to make this effective Transnet will
have to look urgently at creating
the infrastructure and systems for
containers to be railed between Ngqura
and Gauteng during this period. The
announcement that private enterprise
will be invited
to take part in
the operation
of the Ngqura
Container
Terminal only
adds to the
complexity of
the matter.
The Bayhead
dig-out is seen as a short-term
development, with future expansion
extending to the present Durban
International Airport site to the south
of the port. What the planners are
saying is ‘don’t write off Durban just
yet – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’
