Investments planned for Eastern Cape ports

Transnet will be investing in all three of the Eastern Cape’s ports, according to speakers at an FTWsponsored Transport Forum hosted at Ngqura in July. Ngqura itself is being remodelled from a “port built around a smelter” to a transit hub, according to Tau Morwe, chief executive officer of the Transnet National Ports Authority. Two additional berths are expected to be open by December this year, which will enable the port to cater for four new-generation container vessels at a time. Once additional gantries have been installed (planned for 2012), the extended container park will be able to handle two million TEUs a year. According to Morwe, Ngqura has opened up new opportunities for servicing both the east and west coasts of Africa. A tender for the building of a facility to handle bulk liquids in Ngqura is due to be awarded in December as a precursor to moving the existing tank farm from Port Elizabeth. FTW understands there is much lobbying behind the scenes for manganese exports to be moved from Port Elizabeth to Ngqura. Transnet has undertaken to halt manganese exports through Port Elizabeth by 2017. In order to cater for growing demand for manganese, the existing railway line between the Northern Cape and Port Elizabeth will have to be upgraded. Alternatively, a new line can be built to Saldanha – an option apparently favoured by the mines. This would have a severe impact on the future of the two Port Elizabeth ports, because the railway line would then be downgraded to branch status, effectively cutting the ports off from the hinterland by rail. However, according to Rajesh Dana, manager of the Port of Port Elizabeth, there are expansion plans for the port of Port Elizabeth. They include the deepening of the container berth, and investment in two new tugs by 2013/2014, as well as replacing the fleet of rubber tyred gantries. Refurbished ship-to-shore gantries from Durban will also replace the existing gantries, all but one of which have reached the end of their serviceable lifetimes, according to Siyabulela Mhlaluka, Transnet Port Terminals’ terminal executive for the Eastern Cape region. “Traffic through Port Elizabeth is not going to diminish. Ngqura is not swallowing Port Elizabeth,” he said.