Contractors on site for new Walvis Bay container terminal

The contractors are on site to build a new 40-hectare container terminal on reclaimed land which will lead off the existing Walvis Bay harbour. Once completed in 2017 it will add 600 metres of quay length to the existing 1 500 metres in Walvis Bay and raise capacity from 350 000 TEUs a year to a million TEUs, according to Elias Mwenyo, manager of sales and services for the port of Walvis Bay. The US$300-million contract for the building of the port was awarded in November 2013 to Chinese company China Harbor Engineering Company limited (CHEC). Namport has obtained a portion of the financing for the project from the African Development Bank (AfDB). When FTW visited the port in March 2014 we saw construction equipment stacked and ready to use in the port of Walvis Bay. The new container terminal will “create much needed additional capacity for all port business to expand (containers, bulk, rig repair, etc). “With the existing container terminal being converted back to a multipurpose terminal by 2017, it will provide some additional bulk handling capacity to cater for demand until 2022, after which this too will become insufficient for demand,” said Mwenyo at an industry briefing in Walvis Bay. CAPTION Zunaid Pochee