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Steve Agbota and Bolaji Okunola
The management of Lekki Port located in the Lagos Free Trade Zone has said that the port will be completed in 2021 but will commence commercial operations in 2022.
This was even as it said it has achieved 50 per cent completion of the break water, which is one of the largest and critical part of the port construction.
Technical Director, Lekki Port, Steven Heukelom, who disclosed this during a media tour of the facility at the Lekki- Ibeju axis in Lagos, yesterday, said the breakwater construction has reached advanced stage with about one kilometre work done out of the 1.9 metres projected plan.
Heukelom said upon completion, the port would have three container berth of 680 – metre long and 16.5-metre water depth, one liquid and one dry bulk terminals. He added that it will also have capacity to berth larger vessels of 18, 000 TEUs.
“We are now somewhere almost half way in the break water construction. We have done 900 metres, close to one kilometre and the full length will be 1.9 metres. We will also dredge the channels going up, the channels will be around 11 kilometres long before we reach the natural depth of 16.5 metres and then we are good to go. “In phase two, we will put the liquid jetties, while the basin in the channel will be deepened to 19.5 metres. The maximum size of container vessel that we can receive will be 18, 000 TEUs. So you can understand that having big ships like this in the port will be a game changer,” he said.
The Landside Infrastructure Manager of Lekki port, Kunle Fadunmuye, explained that 30, 000 X-blocks are being produced to reduce the wave impact along the breakwater.
“There are three types of X-blocks, we have the three meter, two meter and the five meter. We are using sulphate resisting cement to build the X-blocks. The three meter X-blocks are 7.2tons, the two meter X-blocks are 4.2tons while the five meter X-blocks are around 13tons. “The breakwater is like an egg. It’s edge comprises of the X-blocks while the core consist of quarry rocks.We will be having the whole 50 hectares of Lekki port floor covered with interlocking blocks. Presently, we are doing what is called the Dynamic Compaction to increase the bearing capacity of the soil.
