Aden Port: A gem lost in time [Archives:2007/1033/Reportage]
March 15 2007
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Aden, for about 3000 years, has been the center of the whole area. Over that long period of time, visitors such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, have been keen about the port and commercial opportunities it can provide. The commercial activities of Aden's port have been recorded since the dawn of history; however, these activities were prosperous as of the beginning of the 16th century. Since that time, Aden has been subject to occupation of different forces starting with Portuguese and ending with Turkish.
During British governance
160 years ago, Captain Hains together with British forces had occupied Aden and they remained there for 125 years. Aden was a small village then with only 600 inhabitants. Upon the occupation of Aden, Captain Hains declared they would make Aden the central place of trade and this prediction came right at a later part of their stay there.
Aden witnessed a slow development in 1839 when Britain established a center for coal trade and further commercial deals prospered with east Africa. The trade was localized then in Barbara, Somalia.
In 1845, trade in Aden flourished, particularly after stores were set up together with customs centers before the front gulf beside Sirra Island. Ships were heading to this area seeking protection and deep waters reaching 911 feet.
Aden was announced a free port in 1850, and it monopolized the Yemeni coffee trade. With the inauguration of the Suez Canal linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, which cuts down the maritime distance between London and Mumbai from 10700 miles to 6270 miles. Further, all goods dispatched to areas beneath the Red Sea were transported via the Suez Canal.
In 1855, British authorities established a pier in Al-Mu'alla and the customs center moved to there. By 1864, there was growth of coal importing and further the trade in provisions of coal and food staffs increased until 1869.
Aden, luckily, was linked by the telegraphic line that connects London with Mumbai in 1870. Thus, Aden was able to provide telecommunication services for east and west and this contributed to the increase of trading activities between 1885 and 1910, leaving the neighboring ports secondary to it.
When the steam engine replaced coal-fueled engines, provisions activities decreased. With the increase of ships and their sizes, there was a need to deepen the port and further this demand was associated with the establishment of Aden's chamber of commerce that reinforced the influence of shipping companies and tradesmen.
In 1889, Aden Port's Secretariat was set up to supervise all activities and administer the port. It was represented by the government and tradesmen and the board of directors was nominated. The first task assigned to this secretariat was to implement the port's deepening program in 1891.
The work started to revive in 1919 involving the ships' fueling. Towards the end of 1931, Aden had four docks relative to such activities. Further, the route and berth were deepened to 31 feet and the number of ships arriving in Aden's Port were 150 per month.
The size of ships and volume of goods increased remarkably in the period 1946 – 1952 and they were increasing in number day after day.
The port's team, consisting of four tank engines and five guiding boats and eight anchoring boats with a four-people team in each and with shifts of eight hours, managed to make a ship enter the port each 33 minutes in 1950. Thus, the number of ships that enter the port was 40-50 a day.
Aden's refinery and oil port were set up in 1955 and thus Aden started another activities relating to importing and refining oil to provide ships with fuels.
Additionally, docks were established for internal trade in Al-Mu'alla in 1956, after filling big areas of sea to set up stores and residential houses in Al-Mu'alla's main street.
Independence
At the outset of 1960, three maritime berths were established to supply ships with fuels while anchoring. The port was further deepened to reach 83 feet. South Yemen's independence in 1967 synchronized with the close up of Suez Canal, leaving a great harm upon Aden's economy and trade transactions.
Following the independence, Aden witnessed a constant deterioration not only in the number of ships coming to the port, but also the quality of services provided. This deterioration was further followed by a setback at technical and administrative levels.
Moreover, the bad situation of Yemen and the continuous conflicts together with Gulf war influenced too much Aden's port and business in Aden in general.
Time stopped in Aden as soon as the Suez Canal was closed before the maritime shipments and the maritime route changed to other ports in the Horn of Africa. Thus, neighboring countries were encouraged to build up their ports and provide them with the most up-to-date technology to cope with the increase of activities and further establishing direct deep piers to meet the demands.
Aden, later on, realized the importance of establishing direct piers to cope with the swift movement of development in world ports. It exerted efforts to develop the port and received easy loans from neighboring countries to set up direct and deep piers in Al-Mu'alla.
At the onset of 1987, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE participated in financing the project with ranging portions. The total costs for building works reached US $ 40 million and this phase came to an end in 1990.
Despite preparing and equipping it with required means, Aden's Port did not restore its recovery and its earlier status, the time when it was just second to New York Port. Now, Aden's Port is ranked 320 in case we speak of container activities – an activity common nowadays world wide.)
Why Aden
There are many characteristics that make Aden distinguished and qualified to be the main commercial port in the area.
Aden provides shipping agencies with a lot of privileges, thus making Aden the area's main port. Also, the port is located at the junction of the Red Sea and Aden's Gulf and directly on the international commercial maritime line that links the Far East with Europe and America. Therefore, a ship just needs to deviate with four maritime miles to reach the guiding station.
Based on its many technical and geographical merits, Aden developed and extended its maritime services until the year 1967 – the time at which Suez Canal was closed before the maritime transport and for 8 years. Closing Suez Canal was timed with unrest that accompanied the national independence, causing enormous damages to Aden.
Many neighboring ports became more active out of oil returns during the decade of 90s. These returns were exploited in setting up modern ports to handle building requirements that progressed then, particularly during the 70s and 80s.
Aden, by that time, did not posses the equipments usesd for handling containers due to the shortage of resources and dry commodities were dealt with in a very traditional way until the end of 80s.
Mu'alla Wharf- Multipurpose Terminal
Yemeni Ports Authority has realized the importance of changing the cargo-handling methods and the solution laid in building new berths. The authority managed to get a financial support to build Mu'alla Multi-Purpose Terminal from Arab Funds. For the first time in its history, Mu'alla Port became able to contain big dry-cargo liners. In 1993, the first crane arrived and a second one was fetched in 1995. Thus, Aden was able to offer transit services. The port has witnessed a noticed and steady progress as of 1999 in all respects as for the number of ships and cargoes.
However, container trans-shipping cargoes at Al-Amu'ala were stopped in 2002 as it turned in favor of Aden's Port of Containers. The number of containers witnessed increase to reach 27156 due to the improvement of performance and the availability of swift services when handling containers.
Latest Developments
Despite building Mu'alla Multi-purpose Terminal and gaining positive achievement at all aspects, the port's administration still feels Aden has not restored its past status due to the competitiveness of the neighboring terminals. Yemeni Ports Authority (YPA) feels Aden can restore its past position and the time is suitable for that, particularly when container ships volume has increase, the merger of shipping companies together with new tendency for having terminals specialized in serving a new generation of container ships.
Following to Yemen's reunification in 1990, a number of studies were conducted by the British government and World Bank together with other consultants and they stressed the importance of Aden's positions and the possibility to develop and provide excellent services to container ships and transit. The General Authority for Free Zones was established in 1990 and a treaty for establishing a new station for containers and an industrial zone was signed in 1995.
Aden Container Terminal (ACT)
Yemenvest together with the Singaporean PSA Corporation and Hyundai established the new container terminal (ACT) – on the north coast. The quay wall is now 16 m; however, it can be dug further to 18 m, four meters deeper than Jabal Ali, Jeddah and Colombo. Thus, ACT can hold the largest existing container ship or any other newly planned containership right now.
Tide patterns provide further 0.6 m to the port's deepness over 18 hours a day along the year. The first phase of the North berths with 700 m was operated in March 1999 and the second phase will supply more berths with 350m and the third one will add 600m of berths. The three berths combined will be 1650 and it is potential to add more berths in the future.
ACT is equipped with modern cranes, with a total outreach of 57m, yard cranes, reefer points, maintenance and other complementary facilities are being established.
ACT Effect on Trade and Economic
Setting up ACT and restoring Aden's early position will play a vital role and develop the Yemeni economy. Yemeni Ports Authority believes ACT and other port's activities will help pull the foreign investments, particularly in industrial aspects.
Surely, there will be rivalry from other ports in the area and some of which proved its existence over the last 30 years. The most successful one are those involved in container activities. Container movements across the world increase with 8-9 percent during 1990s and it is increasing with 7-8 each year until the year 2010. There existed no containers at the time when Aden was among the world ports that provide ships with fuels and now efforts are exerted to make Aden have a share of container market.
Aden will have facilities for receiving the large-sized ships, as for those which have the capacity of loading 4500 containers or while some reached 6000 and some other ships loads more than 10.000 containers will join service very soon.
The ships that carry 4000 containers represent 2 percent of the containers fleet world wide and they will reach 33% in 2010. ACT can hold such sizes and even larger ones and restore its past position.
Al-Mu'lla Multi-purpose Terminal is still providing distinguished services for the country as it provides the economy with hard currency received from the passage of ships, enabling Yemen to import in a modern way, including construction and consumer goods and further exporting services.
It is expected that both ports will be complementary to one another as Al-Mu'alla port will receive small size containers and feeder ships for re-exporting while ACT will receive giant ships.
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