Durban’s ageing dry dock will be closed for two months while Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) completes a R30-million repair to its badly corroded outer caisson.Deputy port engineer Dumisani Mkhize said that routine maintenance had revealed that it was in “a severe” state of “structural disrepair”.
The Prince Edward Graving Dock, conceptualised in 1911, was originally built for the Royal Navy. It was commercialised in June 1925.The entire repair, which would take four months, had been structured so that the dry dock itself was only out of commission during August and September. It would reopen on October 6.
Durban-based Channel Construction, which won the tender for the project, would work 24-hour shifts, with the majority of the work being carried out off site at its Bayhead workshop. MD Hafzal Razak said the tender would create 43 new jobs on site and 26 additional positions in the company’s workshop.
The caisson repair marked the beginning of investment in the Durban dry dock, which had been earmarked as a job creator and business generator through the revitalisation of the ship repair industry in Durban.TNPA had identified projects valued at R16.8-billion to facilitate the growth of the local ship repair, ship building and oil and gas sectors.
All should be operational by 2019.
