Bangladesh’s second-largest seaport Mongla is building six more jetties to handle increased volume of cargoes as the port’s connectivity is improving following the construction of Padma Multipurpose Bridge that will directly link the capital city of Dhaka with the port.
Located in the country’s southwestern Khulna division, the port will be busy after vehicles start running through the bridge next year, according to officials.
Of the six jetties, two will start handling cargoes next June. These are being constructed under public private partnership at a cost of over US$100 million.
The work for two more jetties will start soon as they got approval from Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, the highest decision-making body of the country a few months back. Additionally, the procedure for the rest two jetties is advancing.
The seaport in the fiscal year 2020-21 handled 43,959TEU and 11.94 billion metric tonnes of cargoes. Until now, the port had the capacity to handle 100,000TEU and with the recent addition of modern equipment, the handling capacity has increased to 200,000TEU.
The six new jetties, once constructed, will add another 800,000TEU capacity, reaching 1 million TEU, said Zahirul Huq, Chief Planning officer of the Mongla Port Authority.
The seaport last month attained the capacity to handle gearless vessels by installing four mobile harbour cranes and two multipurpose mobile cranes in its jetties. Before that, the port had only been handling geared vessels.
The port authority is now implementing a project for extension and modernisation of facilities under which procurement of 75 pieces of equipment is planned.
Presently, larger vessels at first come to the Chittagong port and unload some boxes there to lower weight, and then come to discharge at Mongla port due to water draft restriction.
To remove the draft restriction, the authority last year dredged the outer bar of the port to raise water depth thus now vessels up to 9.5-meter draft can anchor there. Now another US$900,00 dredging project is ongoing to enhance the water depth of the inner bar which will enable the port to handle vessels of 9.5 meter draft in its jetties.
Abid Rana, a Dhaka-based importer, said the under-construction Padma Bridge will cut travel time to Mongla port thus capital-based shippers will prefer Mongla avoiding congested Chittagong port as both will handle vessels of the same size from next year. “Both time and money will be saved if we can use the port with improved connectivity,” he noted.
Sharar Nayel
Bangladesh Correspondent
