Cameroon: Kribi Port prepares its entry into service on June 14
Published March 3, 2014 by Afriquinfos
Less than three years after the official start of work by President Paul Biya in October 2011, the deepwater port of Kribi , a seaside town in southern Cameroon , tends towards the end of the first phase of its implementation and planning its entry into Service on June 14 by the reception to his first boat dock from abroad , according to official sources in Yaounde.
With an investment of 240 billion francs ( $ 480 million ) to 207.7 billion financed by China for a preferential loan of Exim Bank and the rest by the Cameroon government , the port for the first phase has two terminals, a multipurpose terminal of more than 680 meters of quay for accommodating ships of 40,000 tons and 70,000 tons beginning to end , and a container terminal for ships of 50,000 tons and 70,000 tons as futures .
A project entrusted to the Chinese firm China Harbour Engineering Company ( CHEC ), the deep water port of Kribi in gestation since the 70s is actually present as an infrastructure with a general port and an iron jetty for evacuation to the international market ore from a mine in the process of exploitation Mbalam , a town of eastern border of Congo - Brazzaville . Designed to accommodate vessels of around 16 meters draft, it positions itself as " the largest port investment in Central Africa and West ", says the managing director of CHEC- Xu Huajiang . In its second phase, includes the construction of industrial terminals (alumina, aluminum , hydrocarbons) and specialized piers ( liquefied gas and iron ore) .
Director of Operations of the World Bank Cameroon, Gabon , Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic (CAR), Gregor Binkert welcomes the important work for the economic development of Cameroon , " but once it is done there many potential also for the sub-region " Central Africa, in trade with the outside.
" The port of Kribi is also an ore port for Mbalam iron and other mines. And iron Mbalam is on both countries. This is the Cameroon and Congo - Brazzaville . It is from the port of Kribi we will also export the iron Congo - Brazzaville . This is already a regional dimension, " he has said in an interview with Xinhua .
According to official estimates , this port will record with an average traffic from 250,000 to 400,000 20-foot equivalent containers , with a volume of over 50 million tonnes per year , split between 30 million tonnes of iron ore , 3 5 million tons of liquefied natural gas also occurs in the town of Kribi , more than 6 million tons of oil , 1, 6 million tons of aluminum , 2 million tonnes of alumina and finally 1200000 tons of cargo .
This is the fifth port built by Cameroon since independence in 1960. A commercial character , that of Douala Wouri River that opens to the Atlantic Ocean has been far more important. In addition to input and output of Chad and the CAR, two neighboring countries of Cameroon without access to the sea gate , the river port of the Cameroonian economic capital for 95 % of domestic traffic and 98 % of turnover, to believe the Minister of Transport Robert Nkili in a report presented at a government meeting Wednesday in Yaounde.
" This port sub- regional interest in 2013 reached a record volume of traffic of 10 million tons " , said the minister. But , in the opinion of the Resident Representative of the World Bank Gregor Binkert " the port of Douala , there will be limits , we can not go beyond eight million tonnes ( annually) . With good growth in the sub -region, we needed a second port . "
Unlike Limbe ( South West) where the activity is mainly oriented towards small and local cabotage passenger with neighboring countries plus terminal and petroleum yard , Kribi already houses another small port reserved to , in addition as cabotage , artisanal fishing and boating. In his presentation to the rest of the government, the Minister of Transport has prepared a report of a 31% increase in port activity in 2013 , but " faces many challenges such as the aging infrastructure of the port of Garoua ( North ) , saturation and regularity of channel dredging the port of Douala , the organization of cabotage in regular lines or the absence of effective empowerment of Limbe and Kribi ports . "
"These facilities are however called to meet the requirement of complementarity between them and to attune to the competitiveness in the face of competition from other port cities in the sub- region," announced Robert Nkili .
In the study , the increase in storage capacity of the terminals of the Port of Douala and to allow its bottlenecking the realization of " dry ports" . A rehabilitation project for dredging the river port of Garoua is also being implemented with funding from the African Development Bank (ADB ) to the Commission of the Lake Chad Basin (LCBC ) .
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