TANGA Port continues to shine amidst its ongoing expansion. Tanga port manager Masoud Mrisha said before the Tanga Regional Commissioner that; “the expansion and improvements project implementation has reached 95.5 percent of its completion”.
The port manager said the first phase of the project which was implemented at a cost of 172.3bn/- involved expansion of the entrance channel, increase of the draft at the turning basin and procurement of modern equipment. On the other hand, the implementation of the second phase of the project involved the construction of new 450-meter-long berths at a cost of 256.8bn/-. The port manager also noted that the port has also surpassed its cargo volume target for January this year which was 67,000 tonnes to 77,000 tonnes, noting that they are confident to attain a 3 million target of cargo volume per year upon completion of the project.
The Port expects to receive another largest ship of 189.9 metres in length by the end of this week; carrying bulk Petroleum, Coke chemicals cargoes weighted 50,000 tons from Saudi Arabia, properties of Sayona and Neelkanth.
This will be the third largest ship to dock at the port during the period of one month, at a time when the port's expansion project is ongoing. The port’s expansion project is going well as the expansion and improvement at berths 1 and 2 are going well which are being done to increase its water deep from 3 to 13 metres.
For the period of the past six months, statistics show that the performance of the port has increased upward, the port manager said. On February 26 this year, the port received a 150-meter length ship Baltic Pearl, which anchored and offloaded 6909.292 tons of ammonium nitrate chemical products from Russia, belonging to Simba Supply Solutions Limited and was cleared for four days only. Then on March 15, this year when the port received the second largest ship with a length of 179 metres with IMO number 9573828 from China anchored with spare parts and eight vehicles property of Maweni Limestone producer of Huaxin cement weighing 972 tons.
The Port Manager said when the improvement and expansion works will be completed, the
port capacity is expected to increase to 50,000 Twenty Equivalent port capacity is expected to increase to 50,000 Twenty Equivalent Units annually from the current 12,000 Twenty Equivalent Units and will serve 3,000,000 metric harbour tons (HBT) cargoes annually from the current 750,000 HBT.
Tanga Port is the longest-serving port in a 354-km highway that links it to its sister port Dar es Salaam in the South. The Port of Tanga is situated on the northern coast of Tanzania and it is equipped with Harbours Mobile cranes with lifting capacity of 63 tons each, Tugboats, Cargo barges each with capacity of 3,500 tons, Cargo Lighter with capacity of 600 tons and Pantoons for cargo transfer.
It is strategically located to serve the northern Regions of Tanga, Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Manyara, the Lake Zone, and neighboring countries of Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern part of Uganda.