28 Jul 2010
“This is a project on a world scale,” said Tony Douglas, the chief executive of ADPC.
The construction work will include erecting 23 buildings and associated structures, including the six-storey Terminal Operations Building, which will become the port’s centre of operations.
Other buildings include an offshore medical facility, fire station, harbour-master building, worker services building, four substations and maintenance and repair workshops.
It is scheduled to be finished by August 2012 to support the start of port operations by the end of that year. Although a total cost has not been given, the KPIZ project budget to 2013 is Dh26.5bn, ADPC said.
The first phase of Khalifa Port will have an initial capacity of 2 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) and nine million tonnes of general cargo.
A dedicated berth for supplying a landside aluminium smelter will be operational later this year.
When all phases of Khalifa Port are completed in the coming decades, it will have a capacity of 15 million TEUs and 35 million tonnes of general cargo.
Already, some Dh880m has been spent on environmental protection including breakwaters to shield the UAE’s largest coral reef and sea grass meadows from the port dredging work, as well as during normal port operations. The adjacent industrial zone will cover 420 square kilometres serving the aluminium, petrochemicals, glass, paper and other sectors.
Mr Douglas said discussions were continuing to decide who would manage the huge port when it opened. Speculation has centred on whether ADPC would award a contract directly to DP World, the world’s fourth largest ports company, with Abu Dhabi Terminals, which is managed by DP World and partly owned by ADPC, or a foreign operator.
“We have 26 months [before completion] to determine a precise operating model,” Mr Douglas said.
