CT port upgrades on the home stretch

The expansion and upgrading of the Cape Town port is on track and set to be completed by no later than June this year. According to Magenthran Ruthenavelu, Cape Town port engineer, a total of R3.8 billion has been spent on the project that will see the Cape Town Container Terminal up its capacity to a million TEUs. “We had to address infrastructure and capacity at the port to sustain business as it was becoming clear that we would not be able to handle the expected growth in container traffic and the bigger vessels that are coming through the port.” He told FTW containers remained a thriving sector for the port along with liquid bulk. “With the expansion plan we have allowed for the berthing of larger vessels by deepening the quay wall and the basin to a water depth of 15.5m and replaced the aged quayside gantry cranes with six new cranes with twin-lift capacity that will ultimately increase vessel turnaround times significantly.” Ruthenavelu said the programme had also addressed stack capacity. “The port’s stack capacity has been a major concern as we could only stack boxes three high. As we were not in a position to increase the capacity we reconfigured the terminal stacks for RTG operation.” He said by densifying the stack they had increased capacity significantly as the capability was now six wide and five high. “Another exciting sector is that of liquid bulk where we had projected a fairly slow growth. Our expectation in 2011 was around 2.2 million tons but it was closer to 2.8 million making it important for us to ensure adequate capacity to meet the volumes.” With two tanker berths already available the port is in the process of converting two more berths into liquid bulk handling facilities, he said. Ruthenavelu said the liquid bulk upgrade was at the detailed design stage with construction expected to start in the second half of this year.