KBSP: all part of the Master Plan

While it would be wrong to suggest that the Bahrain Gateway container terminal augurs the closure of Mina Salman, the port which has served the country well for almost half a century, that all container traffic is now being re-routed to Khalifa bin Salman (KBSP), the new port at Hidd on Muharraq Island, does provide the General Organisation of Sea Ports (GOP), the landlord for both ports, with something of a dilemma.

Although full closure is not really an option, given that it is likely to form a significant part of a planned über-modern, 650ha logistics zone, any decision on how best to immediately utilise Mina Salman’s facilities in the most economic way possible might take some time with the focus now firmly on KBSP.

One sensible option would be to keep it in operation for specific cargoes, such as aggregates, construction materials and other dry bulk. Grain is the obvious choice since this would provide a degree of continuity for the huge flour mill within the port that might otherwise find itself at sixes and sevens.

The decision to build a new port was proposed in 1995. Five years later it was approved by the government and design studies started. In 2002, work started on the infrastructure which was completed in 2004. And in the summer of 2005 APM Terminals was awarded a twenty-five year concession to operate Mina Salman and thereafter KBSP upon completion of the first of a planned three phase port development project.

The $663m first phase included the reclamation of 800ha of land to form two 150ha sections, one of which houses the 1.1m teu Bahrain Gateway terminal, the other a state-of-the art cruise and ferry terminal intended to meet an anticipated increase in European-based cruiseships. According to GOP, last year Bahrain received an average of five cruiseships a month during the high season.

Phase two development, expected to get underway in the next five to seven years, will add another 150ha to the site, more than doubling container handling capacity to 2.5m teu. The master plan for the third stage, however, has not been completed, although it could take capacity to 7m teu.

APM Terminals has already invested about $62m in equipment. And the state-of-the-art facility, to officially open next month this month but which received its first vessel, the 2,500 teu APL Dalian, back in April, features four post-panamax ship-to-shore cranes, each with twin-lift capabilities and an 18 stack outreach. Twelve rubber-tyred gantry cranes, 28 terminal tractors, six spreaders, two reach stackers, and two mobile harbour cranes of between 27t-32t capacity facilitate ship loading/unloading operations across some 1,800m of quayside. The facilities include three 300m container berths and include six deep-water berths and finger jetties for tugs and small craft.

Connected to the mainland by an eight-kilometre, purpose-built causeway, it will eventually include an industrial area, approximately 60,000m² of covered storage, 24,000m² of container freight warehousing, an 18,000m² export shed and a further 18,000m² of open storage for general cargo handling. Longer term plans include a cold store facility, distribution warehouses, bulk grain and timber storage, export and transit vehicle storage, a passenger terminal and bunkering facilities.

Having originally deepened the approach channel to 12.8m, dredging has continued to match the 15m draught alongside and in the turning basin. This should be achieved in early 2010, allowing fourth-generation container vessels to dock, and process 10,000 containers at a time.

Such depth is intended to satisfy global liner trends for ever larger vessels and their need for deep water facilities. But dredging the approach to Mina Salman, currently at 11m, was deemed impossible due to the port’s ‘dog-leg’ location around ASRY point, which forces ships to make a tight turn. Another factor was the beam of these next-generation containerships: the crane spans at Mina Salman do not reach across the ships, requiring vessels to off-load on one side only and then turn to allow discharge of the other.

“[KBSP] fits in with a lot of the developments in the region. We are not trying to compete with the mega-ports [in terms of volume] but we will compete on efficiency and the advantages we can offer the customer. In this regard we think we can compete very well,” says GOP director-general Hassan Ali Al Majed.

He believes that the developments taking place throughout the Gulf region, and the new causeway being built, will open a new market whose major beneficiary will be Bahrain.

Because of its link with Saudi Arabia and beyond via the King Fahad Causeway, the proposed Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Bridge and the new KBSP, all closely linked via an excellent network of highways, the ‘hub-and-spoke’ approach becomes an ideal logistics concept to achieve cost effective transport solutions. “Transhipments for a state-of-the-art port with a developed infrastructure are a very big advantage for shipping lines,” says Mr Al Majed.

The General Organisation of Sea Ports is in constant dialogue with KBSP neighbour the Arab Ship Repair Yard (ASRY) and other stakeholders to further develop Bahrain’s marine infrastructure and administration. Plans are afoot, for instance, to jointly develop related maritime sector services, such as a maritime training institute