African Unification Front
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SHIPPING IN THE AFRICAN UNION
Shipping in the African Union is regulated under the African maritine Transport Charter
The Oasis at harbour in Guinea-Conakry
One of the larger ports of the African Union is Port Mombasa on the eastern sea board. It services Eastern and Central Africa, and handles cargo for Uganda, Tanzania, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan. There are more than 200 sailings per week. The sea port and the inland container terminals are managed by the Kenya Ports Authority.
Accommodation: Anchorage for vessels in 7.3 in 22 meter depth while for oil terminals depths are 9.75 m to 13.41 meters.
Bunkering: Available by Barge
Berths: 16 Deep Water Berths with quay length of 3,044 meters.
· of these 13 are general cargo berths with quay length of 2,448 meters.
· 3 are container berths quay length of 596 meters.
· Container backup area is 20 ha and handling capacity is 250,000 TEU/ year.
· Container section has 72 reefer points for refrigerated goods and 3 dry bulk wharves with quay length of 315 m
· 1 cased oil jetty.
Facilities exist for handling bulk cement, molasses, tallow edible oils, grains etc.
Container handling: 4 ship-to-shore gantry cranes, 11 rubber tyred gantry cranes (40 tonnes capacity each).
3 Inland Container depots for inland delivery – Nairobi, Eldoret, Kisumu.
Container Traffic (1999) – 150,000 TEU
Total Port freight Handled: 8,284 thousand tonnes in 1999.
THE CASE OF MAPUTO HARBOUR
Richards Bay in South Africa handles 80m tons of import and export freight by road and rail every year, mainly coal and other bulk minerals. Durban processes another 26.8m tons annually. Together the two harbours handle 4 000 trucks each day, more than all of South Africa's other ports put together. Trucks currently take between five hours and seven days to get through the border at Ressano Garcia on the way to Maputo.
Maputo Harbour handles 3.5m tons per year. Maputo is not large enough to process the newer frieghters freighters. Even when dredging of the harbour's access channels and deep water berths has been completed, it still won't be able to handle the largest ships. Coal exports via Richards Bay are loaded on to ships as big as 150,000 tons, almost double the size of the 80000-ton vessels Maputo and its coal terminal at Matola will be able to accommodate. Maputo's future lies in serving niche markets. High-value anthracite coal from Mpumalanga, for example, is worth more per ton than ordinary coal and can be sold in smaller quantities. Lower transport costs via Maputo will make the use of smaller ships and marginally profitable mines more viable. Greater efficiencies in the port, where a tipper for offloading coal from railway carriages built in 1919 is still in use, will benefit the growth of African businesses. Small mine owners, among them the first black entrepreneurs in the field, find access to Richards Bay prohibitively expensive because the big mines own the loading facilities and charge more for handling freight shipped by non-shareholders.
With access to a well run port in Maputo, emerging mining magnates could become very competitive on world markets. Cutting transport times from the Northern Province, Gauteng, and Mpumalanga to the sea will be crucial to winning back to the Maputo route goods which moved away after 1976. Because of the tensions between Apartheid South Africa and Mozambique fruit growers in Tzaneen began sending their produce to Europe via Cape Town, although the Mozambican port was closer. Distances and facile regulations allow for quicker and more reliable transport especially when goods are perishable. Even if the trains run on time between Tzaneen and Maputo, the journey currently takes 12 hours longer than the trip to Cape Town. But they seldom do, because the track is in such poor condition that derailments common and mainline locomotives are often not available because they are being used for shunting in the harbour. Some fruit and sugar, mainly from Swaziland and Zimbabwe, does leave via Maputo, but the potential is much greater.
A revamped line from Ressano Garcia would allow speeds to be increased from 30kph to as much as 60kph on the stretch. With efficient management, turnaround times for the whole journey could come down from a current minimum of 36 hours to a guaranteed maximum of 12 hours, cutting shipping costs in half and adding the crucial element of client service reliability. Upgrades of the Tzaneen road and rail connections would improve the port's operations. While 40% of exports from Gauteng went via Maputo in the mid-seventies, the harbour now operates at well below half its capacity.
The port needs four tugs, but only has two, which are 36 years old. The dredger is 33 years old, and the southern channel into the harbour has silted up, adding to fuel bills and time delays by forcing ships to and from the south to use the northern channel connecting the harbour with the open sea. The staff consists of three pilots-one Russian, one Portuguese, and one Mozambican. Displacement due to the movement of jobs from one region to another will be reduced when the African Union can achieve a balanced growth in all its regions and states.
The upgraded transport links would allow significant efficiencies during the building phase as most technology will come by rail and road from South Africa. Trucks using the new toll highway from Witbank would take a route from Ressano Garcia to Maputo 37km shorter than at present. Parallel to the road, a high-voltage power line would bring electricity from Eskom's Mpumalanga power stations to satisfy the plant's huge energy requirement.
SUEZ CANAL
The Suez Canal is 101-mile channel that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. It is the "crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia" because it is used to transport goods to all three continents.
 The Suez canal links the the mediterranean and the Erythrean Sea (Red Sea), and is equiped to handle cargo and passengers. There are 41 African ports in the proximity of the Suez on the coast of Egypt, divided into commercial, Ore, Petroleum, Fishing and Tourist ports.
Among the most important ports are Alexandria, Dekheila which is a natural extention of Alexandria port, Damietta Port which is one of the largest container terminals in the world, Ports Said and Suez ports at both ends of the Suez canal.
A canal connecting the Mediterranean to the Red Sea was constructed by the pharoahs of the 12th Dynasty in 1874 BC. The canal incorporated the Nile and its branches. That canal was abandoned and reopened several times over hundreds of years. The Suez canal is actually the first canal directly linking the Mediterranean sea to the Red sea. It was opened for international navigation on 17 November 1869.
Alexandria port dates back to 1900 B.C. when the pharaohs of the 12th Dynasty established the port of West Pharoon and Pharous Islands. This port was called Rakouda. The current port is 2300 meters long and 300 meters wide. The port has docks with different depths and more than one entrance.
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