Ignatius Ablorh 23473 86757

dock rail facility with dedicated sidings to handle

Dock facilities at Port containers, bulk and break-bulk cargo. It also offers

Pepard extensive back – up infrastructure, including

warehousing facilities, open stack yards, weigh bridges
and dedicated rail sidings.
Report by: Ignatius Ablorh
A major regional port Excellent Connectivity

Port Pepard is well connected by road and rail to the rest

The Northwest region of the country has a long coast
of the country. It is directly connected by the broad-
line of over two thousand kilometres and has existing
gauge rail network of the National Railways. Port
ports in over forty locations. Many of these traditional
Pepard has set up a joint venture with the National
harbours are unsuited to the large container ships or
Railways – Pepard Rail Corporation Limited, making it
bulk carriers of today. New sites have been found for
possible to offer the most competitive rail freight and
developing several new anchorages suited to the
transit times in the western coast. The hinterland
massive ships required by today’s transport needs. One
capabilities have also been augmented with new
such port is Pepard on the seaway on the south eastern
scheduled services being provided to our new
coast of this region. This port has been developed
manufacturing plant
specifically to handle the export of our new range of
cars built to meet national and world demands for small,
Port Pepard has built an 11 km long four-lane
economical and environmentally friendly family
expressway connecting the port to the National
transport.
Highway. The Government has undertaken a project to
construct a central spine road, extending up to Port
Development
Pepard.
Port Pepard, a successful public – private enterprise, is
Port Pepard has the most competitive rail freight rates
emerging as an important gateway port on the West
coupled with excellent transit times as compared to
Coast for containers, bulk and liquid cargo. With less
other gateway ports on the West Coast. Port Pepard is
than ten hours steaming time from the region’s largest
now connected to its hinterland by the broad-gauge rail
city, Port Pepard provides excellent access to the main
network of the National Railways and is now connected
trade lines in the North Western region. Its handling
by rail to all the major Inland container depots in the
facilities are developed to manage the efficient transport
North West. The broad-gauge rail connectivity project
of our cars.
has been undertaken by Pepard Rail Corporation
Port Pepard is operated by one of the largest container Limited (PRCL) promoted by Pepard Port Limited and
terminal operators in the world. APM Terminals has the Ministry of Railways. Port Pepard has an equity
operations spread over more than 50 terminals in 31 stake of 38.8% in PRCL. The Port can handle incoming
countries, on five continents. With a 54% stake, APM and outgoing trains simultaneously and the current
Terminals is the largest shareholder in Port Pepard. capacity of the rail link is 22 trains per day. At present,
the port is handling on an average 2 trains per day.
The Waterfront
Port Pepard is the first port in this country to receive
Port Pepard offers a total quay length of 1,075m and double stacked container trains (March 2006), which
accepts vessels up to 14.5 metre draft. There is an on- have a capacity of carrying 180TEUs as against 90TEUs

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Ignatius Ablorh 23473 86757
carried in a single stack train. At present, the double through that and are meeting export targets again as
stack container trains run to the inland railhead. world trade has picked up.

Oceanographic Conditions Cars exported through Port Pepard

Year 2007 2008 2009 2010
Planned 43000 50000 50000 55500
Port Pepard is protected by two islands, which act as a
Actual 45500 39500 45500 56000
natural breakwater making the port safe in all weather
conditions. The presence of these islands also leads to
the tranquillity of the water in the harbour. It also
ensures the wave height is less than 0.5m most of the
time. Port Pepard has now increased the draft to 14.5
metres from 12.5 metres. The water currents are
between 2.5 to 3 knots during peak tidal conditions.

These favourable oceanographic conditions at Port

Pepard ensure easy and safe navigation of ships round
the year. Thanks to the twin islands, Port Pepard can
offer its services throughout the year, even during the
monsoons, which provides an added advantage to its
customers.

Storage Developments

One of the unique features of Port Pepard is the

availability of large tracts of land. This is attractive to
several customers who wish to set up tank farms or
warehouse facilities on site. A car storage facility is built
here to hold cars while awaiting shipping. Cars are
brought in by rail and loaded into containers in a newly
developed container storage facility. This was developed
in preparation for the launch of the new Micro range of
cars which we believe will meet worldwide
requirements for environmentally friendly personal
transport that is easily afforded by families of modest
incomes.

Car exports

We have come through some difficult years for

manufacturing and show here how our planned exports
of cars were actually met through the recent years of
world economic downturn. It will be seen that we came

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