Pakistan’s long-awaited deep water container port has finally reached the last stage of its progress. Development of the water terminal at the Karachi port will conclude in mid-April this year. Mother vessels will then use the terminal after its construction is complete.
Capacity of a Mother Vessel
A single mother vessel can carry up to 18,000 containers, each of 20 feet. Besides this new terminal, rest of the terminals in Pakistan has the capacity to hold almost 8,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units). In other words, this terminal will be the largest water-container terminal in Pakistan.
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The last ongoing project of the Pakistan Deep Water Container Port (PDWCP) is to dredge the outer approach channel to 16-metre depth.
An official at KPT official said:
“KPT (Karachi Port Trust) has awarded the dredging contract to Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors BV of the Netherlands for Rs2.98 billion”
Four companies were shortlisted for the task including companies from Belgium and China. 120 days will be allotted to the company to complete the dredging work. These 120 days start after the issued date of the letter of commencement i.e. 5th December 2016. The KPT official reported that the work will be completed by 5th April 2017.
Inauguration of PDWCP
The PDWCP will be inaugurated during the second half of February, as announced by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat. This inauguration will be an early one as the construction of the terminal will complete in the month of April.
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The main partner of the KPT in this project is the SAPT (South Asia Pakistan Terminals). It is a subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings of Hong Kong.
KPT has been more than helpful in the development of the terminal. It has provided land for it and also provided services for the delving of the channel. In addition, KPT has also provided roads in order to transfer cargo to and from the terminal.
On the other hand, SAPT has played the chief role in developing, constructing, providing equipment for the construction and operating the terminal.
Project Cost
The total cost of the project is estimated to be $1.4 billion. This amount includes KPT’s contribution of $800 million and SAPT’s share of $600 million.
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While recording the statement, a STP official stated:
“The terminal is 100% ready to welcome mother vessels, but…the much-delayed dredging of approach channel is now finally in progress”
Commencement and Conclusion
The project was started in 2007 and was estimated to be completed by the year 2012. However, due to very slow progress in the development of the terminal, the project was delayed and will now come to an end in April 2017. The primary reason for this delay was in the process of dredging the outer approach channel.
Dredging was the main issue in the development of the terminal as China Water and Electric did the dredging of the port basin for PKR 19.28 billion and refused to dredge the outer channel as it was not part of the contract. Due to this reason, KPT tried to do the dredging itself but failed to do so.
SAPT officials told that due to less capacity at the Pakistan terminals, larger vessels carrying cargo for Pakistan had to go to other seaports such as Jebel Ali in the UAE in order to offload the cargo and then reload it on smaller vessels. These smaller vessels were then shipped to Pakistan and offloaded there. The SAPT official said:
“The percentage of such cargo is big…All this means extra costs, time delays, higher risks, more documentation and overall inefficiency”
There has been a 12% increase in Pakistan’s containerized cargo traffic from January 2016 to October 2016 as compared to the same period of last year. He further added:
“We foresee 15% growth in the calendar year 2017”
The terminal has 4 berths, each of 375 meters out of which 2 will be ready by April 2017. Additionally, the other two are scheduled to be completed by the year 2020. By December 2018, the depth of the outer approach channel will be increased to 18 meters as SATP is planning to invest another $200 million in this phase.
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