The new PCT terminal has been decided to be operated by the port authority Red Sea Gateway Terminal International Limited, a Saudi Arabian company.
The operation of the bay terminal project will allow ships with a capacity of 6,000 containers with a draft of 10-12 meters to anchor. The existing infrastructure of the port can accommodate up to 1800 unit capacity container ships at the jetty. Now based on the tide in the port the ships move to the jetty. But the bay terminal can accommodate ships 24 hours a day.
Patenga Container Terminal has been constructed at a cost of Tk 1,230 crore with Chittagong Port’s
own funding. Patenga Container Terminal (PCT) has been constructed on 26 acres of dry-dock and boat club at the estuary of Bay of Bengal and Karnaphuli River.
The 584 meter long terminal has three jetties. Ships can enter simultaneously. Two will accommodate import-export cargo container ships and the other 204-meter-long Dolphin Jetty will accommodate fuel tankers. Ships with a maximum draft of 9.5 meters have entered Chittagong port. But vessels with 10m draft will have access to Patenga Container Terminal.
The mother vessel arriving offshore has to cross 12 nautical miles to reach the main jetty of Chittagong Port. But to reach Patenga container terminal 6 nautical miles have to be crossed.
Meanwhile, the Bay-Terminal project has been unveiled on 900 acres of land in an area of about 6.15 kilometers long near Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium in Rasmonighat.
Three terminals will be constructed in Bay Terminal. Among them is a 1,225 meter long container terminal, an 830 meter long container terminal and a 1,500 meter long multipurpose terminal. The total length of the three terminals is 3.55 km. The Chittagong Port Authority will be responsible for the construction and operation of the multipurpose terminal.
The terminal will have six jetties. The remaining two terminals will be constructed and operated under a public-private partnership arrangement funded by skilled and experienced international terminal operators.
The Bay-Terminal will have a total of 13 jetties. The bay-terminal will have multimodal connectivity facilities. On the eastern side of the project is the Port Access Road and Railway.
According to project sources, the master plan has estimated the cost of constructing the bay terminal at around Tk 17,000 crore. It is expected that four and a half billion dollars will be invested in return. Due to the natural depth of more than 14 meters, foreign investors are interested in this bay terminal.
The proposed port will be invested by Singapore Port Authority and Dubai’s DP World. The World Bank will give 50 million dollars to the project for creating break water to protect the depth. In the final plan, Dubai-based DP World and Singapore Port Authority are partners in two jetties with a length of 1,225 meters. Chittagong Port will construct a 1,500 meter long multipurpose jetty. The port authority has also received a proposal to set up a liquid bulk terminal and depot at Bay-Terminal with the target of increasing the storage capacity of LPG and LNG in the country by two months. This liquid bulk terminal will be built as the fourth jetty of Bay Terminal of Chittagong Port.
