By ALLAN ODHIAMBO

IN SUMMARY
On completion, Shimoni port will serve small ports in Seychelles, Mauritius, Madagascar and Zanzibar.

The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) plans to expand a minor harbour in Shimoni to cater for rising coastal trade volumes with destinations such Pemba Island and Zanzibar.

Shimoni with a current capacity of approximately 10,000 tonnes is the largest harbour of all coastal small ports including Funzi, Kilifi, Kiunga, Lamu, Malindi, Mtwapa and Vanga.

“Based on general economic growth the port has the potential to accommodate increasing coastal trade volume,” KPA said as it invited bids for a transaction adviser to gauge the feasibility of developing the project under a public-private-partnership (PPP) model.

The current facility in Shimoni was originally a fisheries jetty built by the government and acts as the only port used for community transportation including tourism, fishing and trade.

“Shimoni has a wide well-sheltered deep channel for large sea-going vessels,” KPA added in its pitch for the expansion of the secondary port.

The expansion of Shimoni port is expected to supplement the port of Mombasa that is also undergoing expansion with the KPA eyeing to increase its transshipment business to grow its regional market share.

Phase one of the second terminal under construction at Mombasa port is expected to be handed over for use by next month.

Transshipment goods

Despite the potential in the region KPA has over the years restricted the volume of transit cargo to avoid congestion due to limited handling and storage capacities at the port of Mombasa.

Statistics by the port handler showed transshipment (handling of goods destined for other ports) remained at less than one per cent of the total cargo containers handled at the port.

Kenya is currently building the Sh28 billion second container terminal at Mombasa port to handle increased trade in the region. The new terminal is projected to handle 450,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) and rise to 1.2 million by 2019.

“It would be ideally located to serve the many smaller ports such as those in Seychelles, Mauritius, Madagascar and Zanzibar that cannot handle the larger container ships coming into service,” KPA said in a recent update.

Expansion of the Mombasa port is crucial to serving landlocked countries including Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo especially to handle increased importation of commodities like steel. The facility has been losing market share to neighbouring Dar es Salaam port due to congestion.

Although the port was designed to handle 250,000 TEUs per year, cargo volumes have grown exponentially to reach a record 1 million TEUs in 2015.

Cargo traffic through the port of Mombasa grew by 10.1 per cent in the first nine months of 2015 after expansion and installation of new cargo-handling facilities. Total cargo volume rose to 19.87 million tonnes between January and September 2015, from 18.05 million tonnes handled in a similar period the previous year.

Container traffic increased by 10.8 per cent to 809,984 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) during this period from 731,300 TEUs in 2014.

The volume of goods destined for neighbouring countries also increased in the first nine months of 2015, rising by 10.8 per cent to 5.83 million tonnes, from 5.26 million tonnes the previous year.

New sea port

Besides expanding the port of Mombasa, Kenya is also constructing a second major gateway in Lamu, North of Mombasa, with a capacity of 23 million tonnes per year.

The construction of the Sh300 billion Lamu port as part of the larger Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) project is expected to help open up transport around the Lamu archipelago. The project entails construction of a new sea port at Manda as well as standard gauge railway lines from Lamu to South Sudan with branches to Nairobi and Ethiopia from a hub in Isiolo.

It will entail the construction of a highway from Lamu to Isiolo with an extension to Nadapal/Nakodok in South Sudan and another link to Addis Ababa through Moyale.

Efficient ships

Maritime trade in eastern and southern Africa has particularly registered good growth, buoyed by booming construction sectors and discoveries of large mineral and gas deposits.

The growth in global sea trade has partly been fuelled by a recent drop in ocean freight charges due to technological advances, economies of scale, improved trade and transport facilitation as well as more fuel efficient ships and trucks have all contributed to the trend of a long-term decline in international transport costs.

aodhiambo@ke.nationmedia.com

Source: Business Daily

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