start building new port in Hambantota in June

May 24, 2007 (LBO) – The Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) is to start construction work on the planned new deep-water port in Hambantota on the island's south coast in the first week of June, officials said.

he first phase of the project is to be completed in three years and three months, SLPA vice chairman R M P B Wickrema told a news conference Thursday.

The SLPA has already signed a contract with a Chinese company while China is giving a loan to help fund the project.

The new Hambantota port is to be built inland, in the Karagan Levaya lagoon, avoiding the need to build expensive breakwaters.

A lot of the design work has been done by Sri Lankan experts.

The first stage of the project - two small breakwaters and two cargo terminals, one for containers and the other for oil and gas - would cost 360 million dollars.

By way of comparison, the breakwater for the new South Port next to Colombo would cost some 400 million dollars, Wickrema said.

The government plans to acquire 1,115 hectares of land in Hambantota for the project, which would displace 450 families who would be paid compensation.

The planned Hambantota port is being designed to have a draft of 16 metres in the first stage, compared with 15.5 metres in Colombo.

It would eventually be deepened to 17 metres and allow it to handle the biggest ships afloat.

The planned port would eventually have 11 kilometres of berths and be capable of handling 20 million containers, compared with 4 kilometres of berths in Colombo and a capacity of 4 million containers a year.

Also planned in the port complex are a gas-fired power plant and a petroleum storage complex and bunkering facility.

A ship building and repair yard is part of the new port's design, to meet booming demand for new vessels with all the world's shipyards having full order books for next few years.

Wickrema said the government decided to locate the port in Hambantota because of its proximity to the shipping lane – being just six nautical miles from the main East-West trade route across the Indian Ocean.

The relatively dry weather in the region is an added advantage as ports are required to operate round-the-clock.

A new port is also needed because Colombo lacks room to expand and is congested as well as from a security point of view, Wickrema said.

"Today Colombo is the only port capable of handling containerised cargo and if anything happens that affects Colombo's operations our import-export trade would be crippled."

Wickrema also said there appears to be forces at work that opposed the new Hambantota port.