The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has signed a Tk 80 million agreement with a German firm as a consultant for conducting a feasibility study for construction of Bay Terminal in Chittagong.Benjamin Leader of Hamburg Port Consulting of Germany and Rear Admiral M Khaled Iqbal, Chairman of CPA have signed the agreement on behalf of their respective enterprises on Wednesday at 11.30 am at CPA Conference Hall.The German firm will begin the feasibility study as early as possible and will complete the study within 9 months for submitting reports to CPAm which after receiving the report, will go for implementation of the project.Meanwhile, the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) has approved the ‘no objection certificate for land use’ (NOC) for construction of Bay Terminal at Patenga by the CPA. The CDA management handed over the NOC to the CPA official on December last year.The NOC from the Environment department is expected to be received in the next month.The proposed ‘Bay Terminal’ to be built on an area of 900 acres would allow big ships, which now cannot anchor at the Chittagong Port, to berth for carrying out shipment activities. CPA will finance, control and supervise the Bay Terminal to be built on the coastline behind the Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ).The Shipping Ministry has already approved the project while Chittagong District Administration approved acquiring of 900 acres of Khas land for this purpose.According to the port sources, the country’s premier sea port, Chittagong Port, handles over 2.2 million TEUs (Twenty Equivalent Units) of containers side by side with handling 15 million of cement clinkers and huge quantity of coal and open cargoes annually.But big vessels carrying different kinds of cargoes including the cement clinkers, coals and food grains cannot berth at the port jetties as CPA allows ships with 190 metres length and 9.5 metres draft to berth at the jetties for unloading their cargoes.Under such a condition, ships with more length and draft have to anchor at the outer anchorage of the port to unload their goods through lighter vessels which results in a high transportation cost.Keeping this in view, the CPA is going to set up the ‘Bay Terminal’ to allow bigger ships to directly berth adjacent to estuary of the port. CPA sources said, the bigger ships with more length and draft to 12 metres will be able to berth at the jetties of the terminal for handling goods.Presently a total of 19 vessels can take berth in the jetties. But in the Bay terminal more than 35 will be able to take berth at a time.Presently the container vessel with nearly 1800 TEUs of container take berth in the jetty. But the container vessel on board 5000 TEUs of container will be able to take berth in the jetties of Bay Terminal.
