Regional leaders to officiate opening of Berth 19

Last Updated 13 years ago by Kenya Engineer

Regional leaders will today come together to witness the official opening of one of East Africa’s major projects at the Port of Mombasa, Berth 19.President Uhuru will be accompanied by Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni among other delegates from the East African region.

The berth 19 whose construction was launched in July 2011 culminated in March this year at an estimated cost of $66.7 million. The change of guard in the country however delayed the official launching of the berth but operations were commenced in April.

The berth boasts as being the only one in the eastern seaboard to have been constructed on reclaimed sea space. The berth was constructed using material extracted deep from the seabed.

”The engineers literally pushed back the sea to create land to construct the 240-meter long berth”, says Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) in a statement.

The new berth, initially proposed as an extension of berth 18 brings to 840 meters, the total quay length of the container terminal. This means that three Panamax vessels of up to 250 meters long each can berth at any given moment.

“Berth No.19 has an additional stacking yard of 15 acres providing a further annual capacity of 250,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (Teus) per annum”, notes KPA.

The capacity of the container freight has since increased with 903,463 Teus recorded in last year as opposed to the originally designed capacity of up to 250,000 Teus.

Port performance

The number of vessels calling at the port of Mombasa between January and June this year is recorded to have increased by 61 vessels. The main increase was reflected in container vessels and bulk vessels posting an increase of 28 and 14 vessels respectively.

The turnaround time which has for sometime been a major problem at the port has improved according to KPA. The turnaround time per ship has since 2012 decreased from 4.6 days in 2012 to 3.4 days recorded this year.

The container dwell time is also recorded to have improved from 8.8 days to 5.8 days.”The average improvement is attributed to improved efficiency as well as the new berth No.19…” says KPA.

The dredging at the port now allows for it to accommodate bigger and longer vessels measuring up to 261 meters with a draft of 12.3 meters.”In the course of this year, we are expecting a 300 meters long vessel which will then be the longest, only 100 meters shorter than the current longest vessel in the market”, notes KPA.

Improvement works have been ongoing at the Port of Mombasa which is a significant landmark highlighted as the main gateway to East & Central Africa.