Tanzania will this month award the contract for the expansion of the Mtwara port, after the discovery of natural gas made the project a priority.
Mtwara port manager Musiba Fikili says the East African nation plans to speed up the upgrade of the facility, located in the south-eastern part of the country.
“It has become necessary to accelerate the expansion and upgrade of the Mtwara port and that is why [this] month we plan to award the contract for the works to start,” he says.
He adds that several local and international companies have expressed interest in undertaking the project, which will cost an estimated $215-million. When completed, the port, located some 600 km from Dar es Salaam, will be able to handle about 28-million tonnes of cargo a year.
The project has been designated a top priority in Tanzania after the Mtwara region emerged as a key investment destination following the discovery of gas, coupled with ongoing offshore exploration activities by various multinational companies, such as BG Group, Statoil, Petrobas and Ophir Energy.
These projects, as well as upcoming investments, including a liquefied natural gas power plant, a gas pipeline and a fertiliser plant, have seen the Mtwara port become a critical facility.
The port, which was constructed in the 1950s, was designed to handle 400 000 t of imports and exports a year, consisting of mainly conventional cargo like cement, foodstuffs and other general cargo.
However, the Tanzania government, through the Tanzania Ports Authority, wants to transform it into a modern port capable of facilitating the transportation of bulk cargo.
“We will be undertaking two projects – the expansion and the improvement of infrastructure and working equipment like cranes and tractors. We need to modernise the port to meet international standards,” says Fikili.
Effectively, the expansion project will see the construction of four new berths to enable more vessels to dock. The yard, which can currently handle only about 1 000 containers, will also be expanded.
Fikili says that, under the new plan, the port has also acquired an additional 100 ha to construct a free port zone, while some 400 ha has been earmarked for oil and gas processing activities.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that the natural gas discovered in Tanzania is in the region of 51-trillion cubic feet.
According to current estimates, Tanzania has the potential to rake in between $5-billion and $6-billion in oil revenue each year between 2029 and 2044.