But containers get strong consideration Ray Smuts DIVERSIFING in ports is all very well but it makes no sense to duplicate a particular facility already existing in another. This is the response from South African Port Operations’ Nad Govender when asked about the likelihood of Saldanha, being the closest South African port to the West Africa oil and gas industry, becoming a ship repair port in future. “It does not make sense for Saldanha to do the same thing as Cape Town,” he says, referring to the Mother City port’s all-out bid to establish itself as the Southern Hemisphere’s principal hub for ship repair. Govender, who heads up Sapo terminals in Cape Town and Saldanha, says the demand for containers to be handled at Saldanha is evident “so we are busy looking into creating some equipment to handle containers, not in a terminal capacity but as part of the MPT operation.” One possible new product in the pipeline for Saldanha - discussions are apparently still in progress - is importing for Western Cape consumption 300 000 tons of animal feedstock a year. The R930 million bulk terminal refurbishment and extension programme is still on track following word from major iron-ore clients that resouces allow for increasing annual throughput capacity from 22 million tons to 33 million tons by the end of next year.
