• Acting Managing Director Rashid Salim said the reduction of cargo dwell time at the Port of Mombasa is a result of a raft of strategic operational changes implemented by the Authority.
• KPA took over the operations at Port Reitz Yard and reorganised the planning units of the logistics partners, increasing harmony in the operations of the unit.
Image: FILE
The Kenya Ports Authority now says it has seen tremendous efficiency after plan to centralise its operations.
Acting Managing Director Rashid Salim on Wednesday said cargo dwell time at the Port of Mombasa has reduced from an average of 5.6 days in December 2020 to 4.6 days in January 2021.
He said this is a result of a raft of strategic operational changes implemented by the Authority.
He said KPA took over the operations at Port Reitz Yard and reorganised the planning units of the logistics partners, increasing harmony in the operations of the unit hence increasing end-to-end efficiency in the port operations.
According to him, dangerous cargo loading which was previously experiencing great delays due to the distance of the loading zone from stacking blocks was improved by allowing it to be loaded at the now optimised line 12 at Port Reitz which is more efficient especially for cargo received at Container Terminal 2.
"Additionally, centralisation of the cargo handling processes and the recently introduced double-deck wagons on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) have significantly contributed to increased deliveries to the Inland Container Depot," Salim said.
In a statement to newsrooms, Salim said a total of 10,072 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) have been evacuated in the past two weeks compared to 9,774 in the first two weeks of the year.
He said a single double-deck train currently hauls 114 TEUs on a single trip using up to 30 per cent fewer resources compared to the normal single stack train.
“Loading of double-deck wagons has greatly boosted the number of containers being evacuated. We started with one double-deck train of 38 wagons hauling 114 TEUs and this has now stabilized at two trains per week,” Salim noted.
He said as of today, the port only allows up to four waiting ships on the queue with the numbers expected to drop in the coming week.
“In fact, we will be loading containers directly from the discharging vessels,” he said.
The port’s performance recorded a decline in 2020 recording 1.360 million TEUs compared to 1.417 million TEUs witnessed in 2019.
The 4.0 per cent decrease was attributed to disruptions to the supply chain because of global lockdowns imposed due to the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Salim said as part of improving the service delivery to customers across the region, the port plans to enhance the use of Hand Held Terminals (HHT) for customers to get real-time updates.
“We are in constant communication with our stakeholders to come up with more strategies for swift ship turnaround so that we not only improve efficiency but also jointly meet our obligations,” he said.
He said a forecast for the next two weeks shows that 14 vessels are expected to discharge 19,533 TEUs at the container terminals and load another 21,541 TEUs.
The Conventional cargo is expected to receive 18 general cargo ships to discharge 330,623 metric tonnes and load 54,333 metric tonnes.
Some 3 tanker vessels are expected as well to discharge 157,074 metric tonnes.