Island View upgrades well under way

FTW’s Alan Peat attended a special briefing at Transnet National Ports Authority HQ last week where port manager Ricky Bhikraj, and infrastructure, port planning and development manager Hamilton Nxumalo, highlighted details of projects under way. This was followed by a landside and waterside tour, which gave FTW a close-up view of the current state of play at each of the worksites. With President Jacob Zuma having allocated a budget of R21.3 billion to the Port of Durban in his State of the Nation address, he guaranteed that a number of major projects could go ahead over the next seven years. And a number of these are already under way. At Island View, the port’s oil and chemicals complex, the reconstruction of berths 2, 5 and 6 is progressing satisfactorily. Berth 6 has already been completed. The budget approved for the upgrading of berth 5 is R363 m. Here, as with 6, a deck on pile structure is being used for the new quay wall, and the berth will be deepened from the current 10.9 metres to 13 metres, which will allow tankers up to 45 000 deadweight (dwt) tonnes (230 m long) to call. The job is 10% complete, and due to be finished by February next year. The reconstruction of berth 2 is a deck on pile structure joining up two currently separate, short piers to create a full-size, solid berth wall, with a central loading/offloading pipeline facility to safely service tankers. A deepening of the berth from 10.9-m to 14.5-m will accommodate tankers of up to 60 000 dwt (245 m long). The R263 m project is 60% complete, and it will be finished in June.