Five-year wait for deeper berths

The deepening and lengthening of the North Pier at the Port of Durban will be conducted in three phases – with the R8-billion project planned to take place from July 2016 to June 2021. This will somewhat dismay shipowners who have complained to FTW about the cost to them of having to run their megaships calling at Durban light-loaded because of the current berth depths on the pier. And, with container ships calling at SA rapidly moving into the 10 000-TEU-capacity class of vessels, the need for the deeper berths has reached a critical level, FTW was told. It has also had members of the shipping community pressing Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) to fulfil its promise for the urgent deepening of Berths 203-205 from -12.8 metres chart depth (CD) to -16.5m CD – and to lengthen the three berths from 914m to 1 200m to take the extra length of these bigger ships. But the planned project is more than a simple dredging job, according to Shane Narainsamy, TPT regional manager for KZN containers (maintenance and projects). In a recent media briefing, he revealed that the project objective was to completely replace the North Pier quay wall to accommodate three 360-metre-long vessels at 14.5m permissible draught. “This,” he added, “will mean building the new quay wall 50m out from the present structure.” And, to avoid losing all three berths, as would happen if the project was done on a one-off basis, it will be done berth by berth – running from the west end of the North Pier to the east end. Given that the average timeline for each phase – with a new, 20m-deep quay wall, dredging, and installing the new slab connecting the present quay to the new wall – will take about 19 months, the first quay to come into operation will only be about November 2017. The project is currently in the detailed engineering phase, in preparation for board and ministerial approval, Narainsamy told FTW.