Bids for deep-water port invited

Karachi Port Trust (KPT) has invited bids for pre-qualifications for site investigation work from international marine contractors for developing country''s deep-water port for container ships in the neighbourhood of its lower harbour.
The planned modern deep-draught berths are to be constructed at ''Keamari Groyne'', to help accommodate larger vessels at the port. The idea is to build a major regional transit and transhipment hub for handling the current and future generations of container vessels with up to 17 metres draught.
The marine contractors should be of international repute who specialise in site investigation works with capability to carry out geophysical surveys, marine boreholes and vibrocore sampling in-situ and laboratory testing to international specifications. The contractor must have jack-up barges and seismic survey equipment and be able to start work by November 1 this year.
The facility is intended to enable Karachi port in the recent hype scenario in shipping dynamics and the forecast of boosting trade growth to create very strong regional markets.
The KPT has also been planning for a long time that it could provide transhipment facilities and access to larger vessels, which would help in increasing throughput as well as utilise optimum infrastructure of the port.
The deep-draught berths would provide terminal 24 hours and 7 days a week (round-the-clock) access for vessels, with no tidal restrictions.
The terminal would also be equipped with quay cranes (rail tyre gantry), rubber tyre gantry (RTG), spreader stackers, forklifts, empty handler, towheads chassis, chassis and power generator facility.
Karachi port registered overall growth of 13 percent cargo during 2005-06, which is a sign of economic activities in the country. For the first time in the history of KPT, containerised cargo crossed the mark of 1.144 million Twenty Equivalent Units (TEUs), resulting in a growth of more than 25 percent.
The port''s overall cargo handling crossed record 32.2 million tons and managed 1995 vessels, against 1768 ships in previous year. The cargo handling at the port remained on a rise registering a massive growth of 32.35 percent in dry cargo, as 21.60 million tons cargo was handled, against 16.32 million tons of previous year.
This was mainly due to the growing demand of fertiliser, coal, cement and sugar.
Liquid cargo handling remained low this year--at 10.66 million tons--compared to 12.29 million of previous year. However, the port will be connected to the White Oil Pipeline shortly, which will enhance its liquid cargo handling.
Due to an increase in demand of imported vehicles, the port handled a phenomenal number of 57,352 vehicles during the year compared to 18,699 of previous year.