Busy port of Walvis Bay

AUGETTO GRAIG

The Port of Walvis Bay is a hive of activity, where a sometimes lacklustre Namibia is being dragged closer to the realisation of the national ambition to become a logistics hub for the Southern African Development Community.

Just yesterday, the port authorities were expecting their first ever consignment of petroleum coke, also known as petcoke, destined to be bagged and trucked to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and to Zambia.

According to Namport spokeswoman Taná Pesat, this is the first time the harbour is handling this commodity.

Petcoke is extracted from bitumen and is predominantly used as a fuel for coal-fired power stations, such as Luena Katanga in the DRC and Maamba in Zambia.

French connection

The port authority also expected a visit from the French ambassador to Namibia, Clair Bodonyi, yesterday to officiate at the signing of an agreement between Namport and the Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque (Port of Dunkirk).

The Dunkirk port authority operates a major seaport located on the North Sea, just one and a half hours’ sailing time from the world’s busiest seaway (600 ships every day).

Its facilities can handle all kinds of cargo and the largest of ships, extending along a frontage of 17 km and with two entries for shipping: the older, to the east, which is restricted to ships with draughts of 14.2 metres, and the other to the west, which is more recent and can accommodate ships with draughts of up to 22 metres, according to its official website.

The giant port’s territory covers 7 000 hectares and includes ten towns: Dunkirk, Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, Fort-Mardyck, Grande-Synthe, Mardyck, Loon-Plage, Gravelines, Craywick, Saint-Georges-sur-l’Aa and Bourbourg.

Situated 40 km from the English port of Dover, 10 km from the Belgian frontier and close to the city of Lille at the heart of the Brussels-London-Paris triangle, it is ideally situated to access a market of more than 100 million consumers.

Dunkirk has made the most of its geographic location and its excellent road and rail links to develop logistics and distribution activities in the port. Throughout the Dunkirk logistics area, all operations in private warehouses are carried out by the operator's own staff and more than 120 000 m² of warehousing space has already been installed at its western port.

Container handling

The Dunkirk port has also achieved significant success in the handling of container cargo recording the movement of 374 000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) for 2017, a jump of 10% compared to 2016 and up 29% compared to 2014.

Container handling in the Port of Dunkirk takes place mainly at the Flanders Terminal. The Flanders Terminal Extension, started in February 2017, will enable the container terminal operator, as of later this year, to berth two new-generation ‘Megamax’ container carriers simultaneously. The terminal quay will have a total length of 1 800 m, with a draught of 16.5m under all tidal conditions.

The agreement between the two port authorities comes at an opportune time for the Port of Walvis Bay, which is on the verge of completing its own ambitious N$4 billion container terminal.

Pesat confirmed that the terminal is 90% complete and said the inauguration date would be announced very shortly, possibly by early March.

The new container terminal is being built on reclaimed land and extends the Port of Walvis Bay, expanding not only the container handling capacity, but also that of non-containerised cargo such as dry-bulk and break-bulk.

The project will cater for containerised cargo handling capacity well into the next decade, Namport’s website maintains.

“The Port of Walvis Bay is ideally located to accelerate the growth of Namibia and the SADC region as a whole by providing a gateway to the region, thus serving as a logistics hub,” the site reads.