The dredging of Mombasa Port is almost completed, and the international shipping lines are already starting to take advantage of this improvement.
Dredging is the act of removing sand and siltation which builds up gradually and thereby reduces the depth of water. Unless this siltation is removed regularly, the ships become too big to enter and therefore the ships calling at the port must become smaller and with shallower draft i.e. less cargo.
The port has now been dredged to minus 15 metres in the inner channel, with a width of 300 metres in the narrowest point.
The turning basin, where a large ship can turn around, has also been dredged to a depth of minus 15.0 metres and widened to 500 metres.
Just a few days ago, according to Coastweek, the MSC Jade, a fully cellular container ship with 36,517 Gross Register Tons, 241 metres Length Overall and a Draft of 11.9 metres went alongside Berth 18. Her total capacity is some 3,000 TEUs (Twenty foot Equivalent Units i.e. 20' containers)!
This Mediterranean Shipping Company container ship is the largest so far to arrive at Mombasa Port!
Previously Mombasa Port has only been accommodating ships of around 200 metres long and with around 2,000 TEUs capacity. Once the dredging has been fully completed in a few weeks time, the port should be able to handle ships with up to 4,500 TEUs capacity.
The dredging is important and certainly affects inland countries like Uganda. Firstly when bigger ships can call at Mombasa Port this means economy-of-scale for the shipping lines serving East Africa.
The bigger the ships, the lower the "slot-cost" (meaning the cost of transporting one container say from a Chinese port to Mombasa).
The cost of fuel accounts for close to 50% of the shipping line's voyage costs; yet, proportionally a bigger ship consumes much less fuel per container carried compared to a smaller ship.
Basically the same number of crew onboard a ship whether she is 3,000 or 6,000 TEUs are needed. All of this for a bigger ship positively affects the cost of shipping a container.
Secondly, bigger ships tend to be newer; and newer ships use less fuel than older ships because of the tremendous progress being achieved these days with ships' engine design and fuel consumption.
A new ship coming out of the yard today probably on average consumes 30% less fuel compared to a similar-sized ship being 5 or 8 years old. Again, newer ships coming to East Africa should mean lower costs to the shipping lines; and thereby lower freight rates to importers.
The biggest container ships operating in the world today have a capacity of 18,000 TEUs. Designs for future ships of around 22,000 TEUs are apparently already on the drawing board.
These huge ships are mainly meant for deployment in the biggest trades in the world because their volumes are much bigger, like from the Far East to USA.
East Africa would clearly benefit if at least one of our ports was able to accommodate modern container ships around 8,000 - 10,000 TEUs. This requires deeper water, more yard space and bigger cranes than what the ports can offer today.
Source: http://allafrica.com/
Dredging is the act of removing sand and siltation which builds up gradually and thereby reduces the depth of water. Unless this siltation is removed regularly, the ships become too big to enter and therefore the ships calling at the port must become smaller and with shallower draft i.e. less cargo.
The port has now been dredged to minus 15 metres in the inner channel, with a width of 300 metres in the narrowest point.
The turning basin, where a large ship can turn around, has also been dredged to a depth of minus 15.0 metres and widened to 500 metres.
Just a few days ago, according to Coastweek, the MSC Jade, a fully cellular container ship with 36,517 Gross Register Tons, 241 metres Length Overall and a Draft of 11.9 metres went alongside Berth 18. Her total capacity is some 3,000 TEUs (Twenty foot Equivalent Units i.e. 20' containers)!
This Mediterranean Shipping Company container ship is the largest so far to arrive at Mombasa Port!
Previously Mombasa Port has only been accommodating ships of around 200 metres long and with around 2,000 TEUs capacity. Once the dredging has been fully completed in a few weeks time, the port should be able to handle ships with up to 4,500 TEUs capacity.
The dredging is important and certainly affects inland countries like Uganda. Firstly when bigger ships can call at Mombasa Port this means economy-of-scale for the shipping lines serving East Africa.
The bigger the ships, the lower the "slot-cost" (meaning the cost of transporting one container say from a Chinese port to Mombasa).
The cost of fuel accounts for close to 50% of the shipping line's voyage costs; yet, proportionally a bigger ship consumes much less fuel per container carried compared to a smaller ship.
Basically the same number of crew onboard a ship whether she is 3,000 or 6,000 TEUs are needed. All of this for a bigger ship positively affects the cost of shipping a container.
Secondly, bigger ships tend to be newer; and newer ships use less fuel than older ships because of the tremendous progress being achieved these days with ships' engine design and fuel consumption.
A new ship coming out of the yard today probably on average consumes 30% less fuel compared to a similar-sized ship being 5 or 8 years old. Again, newer ships coming to East Africa should mean lower costs to the shipping lines; and thereby lower freight rates to importers.
The biggest container ships operating in the world today have a capacity of 18,000 TEUs. Designs for future ships of around 22,000 TEUs are apparently already on the drawing board.
These huge ships are mainly meant for deployment in the biggest trades in the world because their volumes are much bigger, like from the Far East to USA.
East Africa would clearly benefit if at least one of our ports was able to accommodate modern container ships around 8,000 - 10,000 TEUs. This requires deeper water, more yard space and bigger cranes than what the ports can offer today.
Source: http://allafrica.com/