Ngqura pilot boat berths in PE for now

ED RICHARDSON THE CONSTRUCTION of the deep-water port of Ngqura at Coega has reached another milestone with the arrival of a new pilot boat. “The Port of Port Elizabeth will be home to the boat until the Port of Ngqura becomes operational,” says Theresa Williams, marine operations manager for the Port of Port Elizabeth. The “Tsitsikamma” was manufactured in Cape Town over an 11-month period. She boasts two off MTU 2000 Horse Power engines, which enable her to cruise at 13 knots and can get up to a maximum of 24 knots, according to Williams. In July this year, National Ports Authority chief executive Siyabonga Gama commented: “Some of the biggest container ships in the world will be calling at the port of Ngqura.” Speaking at a ceremony to mark the filling of the harbour basin and breaking through into the ocean, Gama predicted that Ngqura would develop into a transhipment hub, as well as a port to serve the Coega Industrial Development Zone and the rest of the southern African hinterland. In the first phase, the harbour will have two container, one bulk, one break-bulk and one liquid bulk terminal. Over the next 25 years it could be expanded to 36 berths. In the first phase, the port of Ngqura will be able to handle Post Panamax vessels of up to 80 000 deadweight tonnes and 4 500 containers – twice the size of the 2 400 TEU ships currently calling on South Africa. Speaking at the same function, public enterprises minister Alec Erwin referred to the question of the container port operator, saying “we are moving rapidly to finalise the container terminal.” It was expected that the container terminal would be ready for the first ships once the first phase of construction of the harbour had been completed. Erwin said he was confident that the port of Ngqura would be viable. Proposals for a harbour at Coega dated back to 1965, and studies carried out by his department after 1994 had identified the need for another harbour on the eastern seaboard of South Africa. It was decided to build Ngqura because “Durban needed a lot of work,” there are limitations on the back of port land at Richard’s Bay, and Saldanha is situated in an environmentally sensitive zone. According to Erwin, the Ngqura port will be able to handle vessels of up to 6 000 TEU. Ngqura would not, however, replace the existing harbours. “We need all the space we can get in Durban, East London and Cape Town.” The port of Port Elizabeth would also continue to operate.