Kenya Ports Authority’s (KPA) new KSh32 billion container terminal in Mombasa is almost ready for operations, with president Uhuru Kenyatta set to officially launch it at the end of this month.
Designed to accommodate larger vessels, this second container terminal (CT2) has the capacity to handle at least 450 twenty-foot-containers at a time, thus increasing the handling capacity from the current 1.42 million to 1.7 million by 2023.
“CT2 will have three berths with quay lengths of 230 metres, 320 metres and 350 metres. The larger berths will handle Panamax container ships of 20,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) and Post Panamax vessels of 60,000 DWT,” The East African quotes KPA acting managing director, John Mwangemi.
In January this year, KPA acquired a new KSh1.1 billion tugboat, seeking to boost efficiency and bulk handling activities at the second container terminal. This made Kenya the second African country after South Africa to own salvage boats. In addition to the tugboat, the Authority also acquired three ship-to-shore gantry cranes from Japan at $28.9 million.
It is estimated the port will handle 47 million tonnes of cargo in the next 10 years from the current 30 million tonnes and up to 111 million tonnes by 2047.
See Also:
