Ghana’s Tema Port expansion project is expected to kick off any time thisyear, Marketing and Public Relations Manager Paul Asare Ansah, has announced.The US$1.5bn project will start off with phase I which will take about 3 years to complete.
Upon completion, the port will handle thrice its current traffic of about one million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs). He further revealed that the reconstruction will expand the capacity of the port to handle even 3.5 million TEUs, far in excess of the projections that have been made.
In June 2015, the Meridian Ports Services and the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) signed a US$1.5bn to boost the efficiency of the port and make it more competitive.
Since its first construction in 1962, Tema Port has 1.4km quay for 4 container berths with 16m draft and a 3.85km breakwater within a dredged port access channel, 19m deep and 250m wide to accommodate larger vessels. The project will also include a railway terminal for the movement of containers by rail to and from the port.
The Accra-Tema Motorway will as well be expanded into a six-lane expressway with service lanes on either side to accommodate the traffic that will come along with the Ghana’s Tema Port expansion.
Seven bids were opened by the GPHA, a couple of years ago from corporate entities and joint-venture companies, including a Ghanaian company, which expressed its interest to partner the GPHA for the Port expansion. All the bids requirements set out in the tender documents issued by the GPHA have been met after it announced an international competitive tender in March 2013 for the expansion projects.
A detailed engineering designs with cost estimates is among the bid requirement, details of how to procure the necessary credit facility to fund the projects, and proof of ability to undertake construction works with GPHA as borrower of the credit facility.
The project bids ranges from US$489m to US$2bn depending on the phasing arrangement selected by the bidder, as the expansion works are planned to be done in five phases. The expansion project is borne out of GPHA’s effort to keep up the pace of development and expansion of its ports ahead of the rapid population and socio-economic demands of the country.
Phase I of Ghana’s Tema Port reconstruction project will include the provision of basic port infrastructure such as breakwater, quay wall foundation trenches, and dredging to adequate depths while phase II, III and IV will add more container terminals and food/fruit terminals to the cluster. The final phase V will involve the construction of an oil and gas terminal and oil-rig servicing facility to target the burgeoning oil industry along the West African coast.
Im just wondering who is the Construction Company doing this Project? Thank you!