Pakistan’s first deep-water terminal to be ready in April

It will accommodate mother vessels that can each carry up to 18,000 containers

KARACHI: The much-delayed Pakistan’s first deep-water container terminal at the Karachi Port has eventually entered the final phase of infrastructure development to welcome mother vessels by mid-April this year, say officials.

Mother vessels have the capacity to carry 17,000-18,000 containers of 20-foot each. Existing container terminals in the country house vessels of the capacity of around 8,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) due to deep water and other handling constraints.

Dredging of the outer approach channel to 16-metre depth is the last project of the Pakistan Deep Water Container Port (PDWCP), which is in progress.



“KPT (Karachi Port Trust) has awarded the dredging contract to Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors BV of the Netherlands for Rs2.98 billion,” a KPT official told The Express Tribune.

It was among four shortlisted firms including companies of China and Belgium.

The firm is to complete dredging work within 120 days from the date of issuance of the letter of commencement on December 5, 2016. “It must finish the assignment by April 4-5,” he said.

The Prime Minister’s Secretariat wants the PDWCP to be inaugurated in the middle or at the end of February - much earlier than it is ready to welcome mother vessels.

South Asia Pakistan Terminals (SAPT), a subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings of Hong Kong, is a partner of the KPT in the project.

KPT has provided land for the terminal, facilitated the dredging of approach channel and port basin, and developed roads to transport import and export cargo to and from the terminal.

SAPT is responsible for constructing and developing the terminal, deploying equipment and operating the terminal.

Total cost of the project is $1.4 billion including KPT’s share of $800 million and SAPT’s contribution of $600 million.



A SAPT official said, “The terminal is 100% ready to welcome mother vessels, but...the much-delayed dredging of approach channel is now finally in progress.”

The project, initiated in 2007, was originally scheduled to start operations in 2011-12. However, slow pace of progress on infrastructure development kept delaying the commencement of operations. Major delay was seen in dredging of the outer approach channel.

Earlier, China Water and Electric had done dredging of the port basin at a cost of Rs19.28 billion. However, it refused dredging of the outer approach channel, arguing it was not part of the contract awarded to it.

Later, the KPT tried to do it by itself, but it did not succeed. The SAPT official explained that at present large to very large vessels carrying cargo for Pakistan went to deep-sea ports like Jebel Ali in the UAE to offload and reload the cargo on smaller vessels that can be accommodated on Pakistan’s shores.

“The percentage of such cargo is big...All this means extra costs, time delays, higher risks, more documentation and overall inefficiency,” he said.

According to the official, Pakistan has recorded a growth of 12% in containerised cargo traffic from January-October 2016 compared to the same period of last year. “We foresee 15% growth in calendar year 2017,” he said.

The official said first two of the total of four berths of 375-metre each would be ready by April or May 2017 and the remaining two would be completed by December 2020. “Work on the first berth is over.”

In phase-II, the depth of the outer approach channel will be enhanced to 18 metres by December 2018. SAPT has plans to invest another $200 million in the phase.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2017.

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