A new deep-water port is being proposed for development some 25 km north of Swakopmund, in Namibia, and its primary focus will be the import and export of bulk materials.

According to Phillip Ellis, MD of Gecko Namibia, the company that is developing the port, a dedicated bulk handling facility is fast becoming essential for the country.

The Port of Walvis Bay focuses on containers and is developing that line of imports and exports, with a tender recently awarded for a new container terminal. Further, the Port of Walvis Bay is surrounded by residential areas and cannot be easily extended.

“The surface area for bulk commodity exports and imports is simply not available [at the Port of Walvis Bay] and Namibia needs a facility that can handle the current and future bulk requirements of the whole region. It is expected that the region will require capacity of around six-million tons a year in the next decade,” says Ellis.

The port will form part of Vision Industrial Park, a 700 ha development. Its construction is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2016. It will be constructed in four phases, with the first phase consisting of a 2.5-km-long breakwater and a specialised fuel and gas terminal with a draught of 16 m. The final phase will increase the draught to 23 m.

Vision Industrial Park itself will be constructed in two phases, with the first phase to be completed by December 2015. Central here is a sulphuric acid plant to meet the requirements of the uranium industry. This plant will be energy positive and a desalination and power plant will also be constructed.

The high-pressure steam generated by the manufacture of sulphuric acid will be used for the generation of power, while the low-pressure steam will provide the energy for a thermal vapour compression desalina- tion plant. The plant will produce around 1 500 t of acid a day.

The second phase of the park will consist of a phosphoric acid and granular fertiliser plant.

Gecko Namibia has finalised the terms of reference for the scoping study and will soon move to a full environmental-impact study for the first phase of Vision Industrial Park. The land has been secured and permission granted by the Namibian Cabinet for the project, which will go a long way towards enhancing bulk commodity trading and easing the flow of Namibia’s bulk mining products to international markets.