Durban dry dock completion date brought forward
Work on the Durban dry dock should be completed by the end of November.
WITH close to 60 per cent of the work already completed on Transnet National Ports Authority’s R30 million caisson repair project at the 90-year old Prince Edward Graving Dry Dock in Durban, the project’s handover date has been brought forward by a month to 25 November.
Initially the four month project schedule entailed a two-month non-operational period in August and September 2015 followed by a partly operational period in October and November 2015.
However, the contractor was unable to take occupation of the dry dock, due to an unexpected delay on the repair of the hospital ship Africa Mercy, being carried out by private ship repair company, Dormac Marine and Engineering. The project therefore commenced on 20 August.
Durban Port manager, Moshe Motlohi, said: “This delayed start impacted on the erection of scaffolding and the appointed contractor’s occupation of the dock, which had a direct knock-on effect on critical path activities and threatened to push the completion date of the project to 24 December. Due to the 21 working days that were lost at the start of the project it became apparent that the contractor’s methodology would need to be changed. We have tried to minimise any further impact on the ship repair industry by taking measures to bring the project completion date forward by a month, although the dock’s non-operational period has been extended from late October to also end on 25 November 2015.”
The outer caisson repair project is the first of 11 Operation Phakisa projects at the dry dock and forms part of TNPA’s large-scale repair programme for the facility. The authority has accelerated planned refurbishments of existing ship repair facilities at its ports in line with the South African government’s Operation Phakisa initiative which aims to unlock the economic potential of South Africa’s oceans. Under Transnet’s Market Demand Strategy, the plans are a key aspect of TNPA’s R35 billion-plus investments into port infrastructure, capacity and maintenance over seven years ending 2019.
