Indian Ocean to be reclaimed for new rail terminal

The new container terminal linking the standard gauge railway (SGR) to Mombasa port will be built on 13 acres of land reclaimed from the Indian Ocean.

The contractor, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), was on May 22 issued a licence to harvest 800,000 cubic metres of sand for the reclamation project.

The contactor is expected to start harvesting the sand mid this month offshore along the Indian Ocean shores from Likoni through Waa to Tiwi area in Kwale. CRBC is racing to complete construction of the 609km Mombasa-Nairobi rail by June 2017.

The harvested sand will be transported in sea vessels known as barges to the site of the terminal, which will be built at Port Reitz, next to the ongoing KPA Terminal II construction. The sand will be used as the fill material to create the new ground.

“Part of this facility, will be built on dry land and another 5.4ha (13.3 acres) to be claimed from the sea at Port Reitz,” says the project’s environmental impact assessment report.

Reclamation of seas has been widely used across the world in ports like Rotterdam’s Europort, Khalifa Port (Abu Dhabi), and Hong Kong’s container terminals.

A section of Terminal II at the Mombasa port is also expected to be built on reclaimed land.

The reclamation is informed by the need for adequate space for construction of the railway terminal to facilitate quick movement of cargo from the port to the rail track.

Plans to establish Mombasa port as a regional transport hub ahead of Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port are hinged on the quick and steady flow of cargo.

The new rail line will ferry heavy containers more quickly and relieve pressure on the region’s congested roads, increasing Kenya’s competitiveness as an investment destination.

Mombasa port has seen a significant growth in the amount of cargo handled in recent years and about 90 per cent of the cargo is still handled through trucks due to an inefficient railway.

The SGR line is expected to provide the needed quick evacuation to take advantage of the current expansion of the port and the growing cargo volume.

Official data indicates that cargo handled via Mombasa port increased to 24.9 million tonnes last year from 22.3 million tonnes in 2013.
But a measly 1.6 million tonnes was hauled using the existing metre-gauge railway.

The SGR will allow for double-stacking of containers with the freight trains also moving at faster speeds of 80 kilometres per hour.

Sand harvesting for the container terminal project had been previously opposed by the Kwale county government and residents.

This forced the contractor to abandon the original harvesting area that was too close to Diani Beach, which would have affected tourism in the area.