Dry docks set for ’14 opening

 By MALUM NALU

THE Curtain Brothers’ multi-million kina dry dock facility on Motukea Island outside Port Moresby is the biggest single project outside the mining sector.

It is expected to be opened in the middle of next year, according to general manager Justin McGann.

Exact figures were not given but it is understood that the project is costing Curtain Brothers about US$250 million (K538 million).

The dry dock will be about 300m long, 48m wide at the door, 57m wide at the base and have a base level of minus 10m.

When opened, ocean-going vessels will be able to come to PNG for repairs instead of going to Singapore, the Philippines or China.

McGann told The National, after taking a delegation of four Australian politicians on a tour of Motukea that the dock would be one of the biggest in the southern hemisphere. 

Monetary benefits to Papua New Guinea after the project opened would be huge, he said.

“We think it’s got potential to be a massive project. If you think about the dockyard industry in Singapore, it has a revenue base of US$10 billion per annum.

“We only have to tap into a small part of that for very significant revenue to be generated in kina in PNG. It’s got a great chance of being successful.”

McGann said the dry dock would be a huge development for Curtain Brothers and PNG.

“We’ve managed Motukea from a small dockyard in the early days to now. We want to go to the next level, a new dry dock, which will take a Panamax (international specification for vessels) for vessels.

“The vessels that we’ve been taking to date are about 120m long, up to 4,500 tonnes. The vessels that we will take in future will be up to 230m long and up to 60,000 deadweight tonnes.

“These vessels would normally go to Singapore, China or the Philippines. They wouldn’t go to Australia because there’s no dry dock in Australia big enough.

“We’re happy to target these big vessels to come to Motukea, into PNG.

“We’re hoping to have our first vessels by next year, hopefully by the middle of next year. We hope that the docking industry in PNG can really go on to the next level.”

McGann said a workforce of up to 1,800 people, mostly nationals, were involved in the development of the project at Motukea.