WALVIS BAY – Walvis Bay Port will soon kickstart construction of its north port project, to be known as the Southern African Gateway Port, just north of Kuisebmond on the way to Long Beach, close to the new permanent roadblock.
The Walvis Bay Municipality recently sold Farm 39 to the Namibia Ports Authority (Namport) for the purpose of developing the north port terminal, which will be a bulk commodity handling facility and one of the biggest developments in the country. The price tag announced publicly by the municipality for the sale of the land was N$50 million.
The Chief Executive Officer of Namport Bisey Uirab confirmed the latest developments in an interview with New Era last week. “The farm is 13 300 square metres and we want to focus that area especially on bulk commodity handling,” Uirab explained.
Last year during a presentation on Namport, port engineer Elzevir Gelderbloem said that the container capacity of the existing port would not be sufficient in the long term and that Namport realized that the north harbour concept was indeed feasible.
Uirab hinted that the new development would be very useful in terms of economic co-operation between Botswana and Namibia. “Namibia and Botswana will be signing a bilateral agreement within the next weeks committing themselves to build a railway line that will transport coal from Botswana to be exported via Namibia. The coal and other commodities will be handled at Farm 39,” Uirab said.
The coal deposits in Botswana are quite huge and the government of Botswana is looking at transporting the coal through Namport to international customers.
He went on to say that Namport is also consulting with various mines that are interested in making use of the new facility. He further said everything is in place for the construction of the new tanker jetty that is also part of the port’s current expansion plan. “We will soon be awarding tenders through the National Planning Commission for the construction of a new tanker jetty through which we will import fuel to the country. The tender will hopefully be awarded in the next month or two,” Uirab said.