‘Groundbreaking’ floating dock facility for Ghana

UK-based Interocean Marine Services is assisting Prime Meridian Docks Ghana in the project to build and operate a floating repair facility in the project, named ‘Project Shiprite’.

Project leaders hope the dock will help to retain foreign currency that would have otherwise been lost to overseas shipyards by giving local alternatives for ship repair.

The design features a 13,500-tonne lift capacity floating dry dock, 18,000m² of reclaimed land, a 200m jetty, an array of heavy marine equipment and the usual modern workshops for pipe and steel fabrication, and offices.

Around 300,000m³ of rock will have to be dredged from the port basin, reports said.

“These features will provide world-class ship repair and maintenance services to vessels trading in the Gulf of Guinea, positioning Takoradi as a strategic hub for maritime operations in the region,” said Interocean, which is based in Glasgow, Scotland, with offices in Norway, Canada, the UAE, Angola and Ghana.

“The strategic location of this facility will provide shipowners whose vessels trade within the Gulf of Guinea with world-class repair and maintenance services,” said Kanayo Awani, executive vice president of the Intra-African Trade and Export Development Bank (Afreximbank), one of the co-funders.

“By providing services that would have otherwise been lost to foreign shipyard repair facilities, the interventions of Prime Meridian Docks will retain much-needed foreign currency within the continent.”

The port of Takoradi is about 140 miles from the Ghanaian capital of Accra.