Kwai Tsing Container Terminals, the world's third-busiest port, is to carry out a massive dredging operation to accommodate a new generation of mega vessels, a senior official from the Transport and Housing Bureau said yesterday.
But the proposed four-year timetable is a major disappointment for some shipping lines that have taken delivery of huge new vessels with a capacity to carry 13,000 20-foot containers.
The dredging, which will not be completed until 2012, will deepen the channel, as well as the basin, to 17 metres from 15.5 metres.
'Currently, a 13,000 teu [20-foot equivalent unit] vessel, with a draft of 16 metres, can't get access to the berth at Kwai Tsing unless it waits for the tides,' Peter Ng, general manager for CMA CGM & ANL (Hong Kong), said yesterday.
'It will cause trouble for the shipping companies and some of the shipments would leave Hong Kong.'
They were likely to go to Nansha port at the mouth of the Pearl River, which was planning to dredge its sea basin to 19 metres from 15 metres in three years, Zheng Tianxiang, Sun Yat-san University professor, said yesterday.