IMPROVEMENT OF PORT

CARGO TRANSPORT
EFFICIENCY FOR
AFRICAN COUNTRIES

Country: Angola
Nataniel Baião
Technician at
Ministry of Transports
Maritime and Ports Institute of Angola
(IMPA)
Phone: 00244933627153

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1) General information about the port

which I’m on charge
Porto of Luanda at Luanda, ANGOLA (AO)
The port of Luanda is located in the sheltered bay of Luanda, location with excellent natural

conditions, low ripple and calm winds. Access is very easy with the mouth of the bay about

1.5 miles wide. The port has a total area of 2,335,033 square meters of which 55,500 meters

represent the area 10 covered warehouses. It has 18 berths of 4044 meters in length and 5

terminals. The depths of terminals vary between 9.5 and 12.5 meters deep. It is a landlord

model of port.

So far, they have accomplished the following:

 Have plans to start the new port construction in Barra do Dande;

 Rehabilitation of Unicargas terminal;

 Construction of the passenger’s terminal concluded.

It is the main port of Angola, moving more than 70% of imports and Angolan exports.

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2) Management and operations of Luanda

Port
i) Current situation
The port of Luanda is the main port in Angola, handling more than 70% of the country overall

cargo. It operates in a Landlord model of management what means it main activities are

concessioned to operators to about 20 years. The operators are the following:

• Terminal of general cargo – Under the management of Multiterminais, this terminal is

on charge of receipt of not containerised cargo, With about 894 meters of coastal pier and

10,6 hectares of banks. Nowadays this terminal invested more than 40 milions of USD. This

terminal has today new silos being able to accommodate one thousand of tons with an

average production of 730 thousand of tons per year;

• Containerised Terminal – This terminal is under responsibility of SOGESTER (A local

trade of MAERSK) and has about 14.5 hectars of banks and 493 m of coastal pier which is in

charge of containerised cargo. Is paramount to say they have 78 milions of USD on wallets to

invest. The average of annual production is about 257 thousands of TEU per year.

• Multipurpose Terminal – The containerised and not containerised cargo is under they

responsibility. UNICARGAS a public corporation manages this terminal and have a coastal

pier of 532 meters and 17.81 hectars of banks.This terminal forecast more than 31 milions

USD on investments. They also estimate an average production of 244.500 tons per year and

also 156.500 TEU per year;

• Oil Terminal – This terminal supports the activities of oil corporations and is under

management of SONILS (SONANGOL Logistics). They own about 168.68 hectars of banls e

1465.34 meters of coastal pier;

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• SOPORTOS Terminal – Has been created to support the process os national rebuilding

after the end of civil war. It receipts containerised cargo and not containerised cargo. It owns

about 23,85 hectars of banks and 610 meters of coastal pier;

TMA Terminal – Under the management of IMPA is the passenger’s terminal drove to

transportation of people in Luanda shoreline. It has an area of 4090.21 square meters a wharf

of 46.15m and able to transport an average of 700 passengers per day.

ii) Problems and issues

Currently the port of Luanda is tackling the following issues that impacts on his efficiency:

 The National Street (EN100) that connects the port to north of Angola has many traffic

jumps and a lot of holes. A large stretch of this roads is in reality dirt roads. The same

happens to National Street that connects Luanda port to the south of Angola. A lot of

traffic jumps inside and out of Luanda to the country land.

 The problem becomes harder when we shift to railroads modal. This modal faces a

slow movement on his way towards to north and south of coutry. I am unable to

unjudge the quality of trains, but maybe it is a problem of railroads oneself such as in

some stretches its speed is not steady and varies a lot to become very slow.

 Another issue the port tackles is the incapability to receive wider vessels whose depths

are becoming bigger. We know it depths are about 12.5 m, and accordingly to recent

developments on shibuilding the panamax vessels have a draft of 12 meters, so the

port is able only to receive some Handymax, Seawaymax, oil tankers and general bulk

cargo vessels. But the country in developing, the tradeoff between commercial

operators also, so, the it’s on time to increase the capacity of receipt of merchant

vessels.

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iii) Present approach to address the above

problem and issues
Although we have these issues quoted above, Our Government is planning the construction

of a new deep-water port out of Luanda center at Barra do Dande. The improvements of

roads around the port are also visible, even thinking we need to look into our hinterland to

structure a better cross road investment plan.

3) The issues related to the cross-border

transport infrastructure
i) Present situation of regional distribution and
international corridor
We can split by three the regional distribution and international corridors of Angola, namely:

By road, By railways and by the rivers.

By railways we have 3 line connecting the center of Angola (Lobito to Luau) towards

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Other line is going to connect Namibe to Zambia

through Menongue and is under planning a third line to connect Luanda to north of Angola.

By roads we have a lane connecting Luanda to Luvo (Zaire province) towards DRC, a second

line connects the south of Angola to Santa Clara border of Angola to Namibia.

By rivers we have a river channel that connects the provinces of Cunene to Kuando Kubango

through rivers Xangongo to Rivungo. There are plans to connect the province of Zaire (Zaire

river) at north of Angola downward to south Xangongo akin to foster commercial exchanges

between Angolan and Zambia.

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ii) Utilization of the hinterland of the ports

The utilization is not enough. We must take profit of our privileged geographic position to two

countries, Zambia and DRC, which have not outbound gates to the Atlantic Ocean. To reach

these goals we need to improve the quality of our railroads.

iii) Analysis on the shipping company’s selection

of port of call
By the number of TEUs transported during the first trimestrer of 2017 we can rank the

following companies:

Rank Shipping Company Name

1 NILEDUTCH
2 MAERSK LINE
3 CMA CGM S.A
4 MSC MEDITERRANEAN SHIPPING COMPANY
5 SAFMARINE
6 PIL-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL LINES
7 HAMBURG SUD
8 GRIMALDI GROUP
9 UNIVERSAL AFRICA LINES
10 ANGOLANA DE NAVEGACAO LDA
11 DELMAS
n/a ANGOLA SOUTH LINE
n/a UNI-CHARTERING
n/a MITSUI O.S.K. LINES, LTD
n/a K LINE

iv) Analysis of the present situation of port cargo

transport
The cargo transport is done mainly by cargo trucks by direct discharge onto him since there is

not warehouses facilities available. Stevedoring is done by either by hiring them from private

companies or straight by terminal operators. There are many equipment’s available for cargo

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handling on several terminals such as mobile cranes, reach stackers, RoRo tug masters and

forklifts.

v) Structure analysis of the cost of port cargo

transport
The cost of port cargo transport is set by ‘Regulamento de tarifas portuarias’ (Regulation of

port taxes) of Angola and can be summarized from the following table:

vi) Problems and issues

A need to improve the quality of roads and railroads. The quality of trucks and stevedoring is

in general good, but the lack of spare parts to maintenance due to the lack of exchanges

(foreign currencies). The continuous improvement of inland railroad mesh is also needed.

vii) Present approach to address the above

problem and issues
As I said the government has a plan to improve the structure roads and main railroads out of

Luanda. However, is not less important the intention to build specific stretch of roads only to

transport port cargo.

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4) Public-Private Partnership of your port

viii) Present situation
As far as I know there is not a public-private partnership until the season I have been writing

these letters. What exists are concessions of berth stretches in domain of Luanda and other

national coastal ports seeking the model of Build Operate and Transfer (BOT). But there are

press rumors of plans to implementations public-private partnerships.

5) Your duties and problem you are facing

in your duties
New duty rates have been implemented in 2018 in order to align the national customs

processes to international standards through the implementation of electronic and

computerized ASYCUDA world system.

If cargo is imported by the sea, a broker needs to prepare and submit the DU-Documento

Unico, to the CNC (Conselho Nacional dos Carregadores). The CNC has the responsibility of

issuing CNCA document and forward to their agent in the port of loading for verification (pre-

inspection of cargo that is no longer mandatory). Thereafter, the B/L number is inserted on

the CNCA document signaling all ready for import shipment to proceed. This procedure is

until now only mandatory for imports by sea, however, the same procedure is expected to be

implemented 2018 countrywide for all types of transportation used during imports through the

main entry border points. The port of Luanda is well equipped in terms of Information

Technology. They are implementing step-by-step the Single Window (SW) system. This will

decrease significantly the customs rate costs in my humble opinion.

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