Sea Ports

Stronghold Global Finance has carried out a feasibility study and preliminary design of The Bonthe-Manna Deep Sea Port Project (hereafter the “Port” or “Project”) will be a leading West African “smart port”, designed and operated with sustainability and technology as the central tenets.

Situated approximately 120km south-east of Freetown, the Port will be constructed along Manna Point, directly to the east of Sherbro Island. The Port will serve the Sierra Leonean hinterland (Bonthe region and the Sierra Leonean interior), the capital as well as neighbouring countries in the future.

The Project has been developed with the strong support of the Government as a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between the Government of Sierra Leone and Stronghold Global Finance (“Stronghold”) under a Build-Own-Operate (BOO) concession agreement.

The Port will be constructed in phases, and will be designed with a depth of minimum 19m (including tide and safety margins) to receive Panamax vessels, with a 2-way approach channel with a minimum depth of 20m. The Manna Point area has already been subject to port prefeasibility studies, where suitable vessel approaches and port locations were preliminarily identified in order to minimise dredging.

Separately to the Port, Stronghold will also be developing an adjacent Industrial Zone Project under a BOO agreement, focussed on the transformation of minerals and agricultural crops for export, and to include a cargo airport. This Industrial Zone will contain a rail and logistics yard, which will be connected via rail in a separate project (to be undertaken by a proposed consortium comprising the Government of Sierra Leone, Orascom and Siemens) to Falaba in the north, Koindu in the east and Waterloo in the west, as well as the existing railway system. Beyond this, Sherbro Island has been identified by the Government as a future site for potential urban development, which if realised will serve as a further growth driver for the Port.

The Port will be designed in phases. Phase 1 will comprise the following infrastructure components and activities:

• Main and secondary breakwaters and auxiliary harbour breakwaters
• Dredging and navigation channel
• Iron ore terminal quay and storage areas
• Service quay.
  
  

The overall Port design will be built in several phases according to demand and financing, and is expected to comprise the following final infrastructure configuration:

• Container terminal: 6 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (MTEU) per annum and minimum 6 Ship-to-Shore Gantry (SSG) container handling cranes per vessel (to be constructed in phases)
• Iron ore terminal: 75 million tons per annum (MTPA) on 2 jetties and 1 quay accommodating a total of 5 largest design vessels at the same time (to be constructed in phases)
• Bauxite terminal: 25-30 MTPA on 1 jetty accommodation a total of 2 largest design vessels simultaneously.
• Dry bulk & General Cargo terminal, with potential Roll-On-Roll-Off (Ro-Ro) ramp and facilities
• Chemical & oil (and potentially LPG) product terminal
• Auxiliary terminal for marine operations (first to be constructed in phase 1 which will be used to import construction materials and for sheltering of construction equipment during harsh weather conditions)
• Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) berthing place inside the main breakwater, with FSRU facilities area at land side to be interconnected by pipe lines
• Container freight station (both road and rail)
• Administrative and social buildings
• Depots, silos, warehouses, open storage areas, entrance & security facilities, Internal roads, parking areas, fresh water storage tanks, pumping stations, substations, fencing, landscaping.