KARACHI, Dec 24: Nine foreign companies have shown interest in dredging and reclamation work for the upcoming Pakistan Deep-Water Container Port (PDWCP) being constructed by the Karachi Port Trust at an estimated cost of $1 billion, official sources said Monday.

The new harbour enclave being developed at the east of Keamari Groyne would need an estimated dredging of 32 million cubic metres. Out of this, 15m cubic metre dredging would be required in approach channel and 17 million cubic metres in basin. However, around 08 million cubic metres of dredged spoil picked from the basin will be utilised for reclamation, sources added.

Last month the KPT has inked an agreement with the Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) to set up PDWCP project at an estimated cost of $1 billion, out of which $57 million will be foreign direct investment (FDI) and the remaining to be invested by the KPT.Under the first phase, four berths would become functional by 2010 and the remaining six berths by 1212.

The concession has been awarded on built-operate and transfer (BoT) basis for an initial lease of 25 years and could be extended for another 25 years on mutually agreed terms and conditions.

The PDWCT is a green field project in which the Karachi Port will undertake infrastructure development, including building of three new breakwaters, extensive dredging work and construction of 1500 metres long quay wall at a depth of 18 metres.

The HPH will establish a high throughput container terminal, including back-up area, provision of utilities, procurement of gantry cranes and other associated equipment, along with computers and management systems.

They will also develop container yard, storage and transfer areas, operational buildings, ship to shore gantry cranes, rubber gantry and mobile gantries.

Since infrastructure development work has to be done by the Karachi Port, therefore, it will have to undertake dredging work to develop new approach channel for the container port. Sources told Dawn that Sector-I and II of the existing channel will be deepened and widened, and Sector I will be extended to match the depth of new channel.

They further disclosed that new channel will be 16 metre deep with 300 metre width at the entrance and 600 metre in the inner harbour, with a turning circle of 510 metre diametres.

The channel will be protected with three break waters. The estimated time for completion of dredging work has been fixed at 27 to 30 months.

The KPT has already taken geo-technical survey of the area for soil investigation and also took bore logs and laboratory test of the samples.

Sources said that specialist consultant carried out the study and prepared the work plan, including drawings for the proposed channel of the deep water port.

There is an urgent need for expanding container handling capacity of the country because box tariff had been growing at 18 per cent for the last five years.

The two container terminals at KICT and PICT at Karachi Port handled around 0.652 million boxes in 2000-01, and recorded a traffic of over 1.144 million boxes late year.

Similarly, the Qasim terminal at Port Qasim handled around 0.158m containers in the year 2000-01, and witnessed a traffic of 0.544m TEUs in 2005-06.

According to experts, growth of container traffic at the Karachi Port for next three (2009-10) years has been estimated around 1.8 million TEUs and at Qasim International Container Terminal (QICT) it will go up to 0.856 million boxes.