Infrastructure

Dredge Works at Lamu First Berth Well Under Way

Dredging works that began in October last year are well underway.

Updated on

June 15, 2017

Lamu Port Kenya — Lamu Port will be ten times bigger than its Mombasa counterpart. PHOTO | FILE

Construction of the Lamu Port on the northern coast of Kenya has proceeded at a snail’s pace, with little to show for a project launched with much fanfare in March 2012.

This is, however, set to change following assurances from the government that the project is firmly on course, with dredge works for the first berth set to be completed by March.

According to the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (Lapsset) Corridor Development Authority director general Sylvester Kasuku, dredging works that began in October last year are well underway, and the contractor, China Communication Construction Company, has already completed more than 20 per cent of the works.

“China Communication Construction Company is expected to complete construction of the (first) three berths by the year 2020 for Sh48 billion,” Mr Kasuku said in a press briefing.

“[The project] is going to unlock latent economic potential covering about 70 per cent of Kenya’s land space located in the larger northern parts of Kenya.”

He said that Kenya is co-financing construction of the first three berths with the rest expected to be financed by the private sector under a public-private sector framework.

Kenya has so far spent Sh12 billion for the construction of the Lamu Port with an additional Sh10 billion allocated for the 2017/18 financial year.

Mr Kasuku recently disclosed that South Africa had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop the first three berths in the Lamu Port.

“The South Africans are currently in the phase of submission of proposals and are undertaking discussions with relevant government agencies before commencing construction works,” Mr Kasuku said.

The plan is to construct a total of 21 berths at the proposed port of Lamu by 2030, compared to 18 in Mombasa, where aging infrastructure hinders the port’s ability to handle big ships and rising amounts of cargo.

Upon completion, Lamu Port will be nearly ten times larger than the existing port of Mombasa, which currently handles 1.2 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) annually and has a maximum capacity of 2.5 million TEUs.

The first three berths of Lamu Port, which are expected to be operational in 2020, will handle 1.2 million TEUs and when fully operational will handle 20 million TEUs.

The berths will be capable of handling crude oil carriers with dead weight tonnage of up to 200,00 tonnes and a capacity of two million barrels of crude.

The port is being built at Manda Bay, which juts out towards the islands of Pate, Manda and Lamu, a site chosen for its size and deep waters capable of accommodating large vessels.