The Kenya Port Authority (KPA) expects to receive three state-of-the-art Ship-to-Shore gantry cranes (STS) that will bolster the port’s performance.
The STS that will arrive in the country on Sunday as the new port is projected to receive larger vessels.
KPA Managing Director MD William Ruto Ethiopia Government has shown keen interest in using the Port of Lamu due to the conflict in the Red Sea.
He lauded the government for improving security in the LAPSSET corridor highway that will connect the Port of Lamu with Ethiopia and South Sudan with only a small section of the road still under construction.
“They have committed themselves that very soon they will start picking cargo in Lamu, with the new Ship-to-shore crane arriving in Lamu. We expect to see a paradigm shift in terms of handling of transshipments,” said Ruto.
He added the Port of Mombasa is handling 30 to 40pc of transshipment cargo resulting from inefficiencies from other region ports and red sea challenges.
“What is happening in the Red Sea may be bad but also a blessing to the Port of Mombasa,” stated Ruto.
The KPA MD noted that the modernization of Port of Mombasa through commissioning of new four Ship-to-Shore Gantry cranes (STS) last year, has enhanced the port throughput.
“The port of Mombasa is doing very well. I want to thank my team, in the month of March, we broke a record of handling more than 180,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in a month that has never been achieved before,” he stated.
He added that the port tower over other regions’ ports in the throughput they are handling is nearing about 500,000 TEUs and in the next four or five months will surpass what their competitors are handling in a year.
In March, When he released KPA Annual Review and Bulletin of Statistics 2023 he appreciated the government’s commitment to enhancing port infrastructure and connectivity in its quest to support economic growth.
Kisumu Port performance improved significantly by 119pc to record 127,745MT in 2023 against 58,290MT in 2022.
The Port of Lamu handled 37,576 MT in 2023 against 6,539 MT in 2022, registering a growth of 31,037 MT. It also registered an increase of 1,397 TEUs in container traffic, recording 1,779 TEUs in 2023 from 382 TEUs in 2022.
The Inland Container Depot (ICD) Nairobi handled 332,100 TEUs in the year under review against 403,665 registered in 2022. The ICD Naivasha recorded 6,294 TEUs in 2023 compared with 7,617 TEUs in 2022.
