WORK has commenced at Salalah Port in Oman to raise the capacity of a general cargo station to handle 20 million tonnes annually and a liquid dock to handle over 6 million tonnes of liquid product.

According to a filing by Salalah Port Services Company (SPSC) to the Muscat Securities Market (MSM), the general cargo capacity was 6.5 million tonnes in 2011.

The expansion works will boost the general goods capacity of the port to 140 million metric tonnes including limestone, brick stone, coal, salt and phosphate rock. The liquid dock handles fuel, methanol, ammonia and ethylene among other products.

A report by Oman News Agency said the OMR55 million (US$142.9 million) project will involve the construction of four docks with length of 1,266 metres along the current breakwater and draft of 18 metres, as well as port basin drilling operations, reclamation, protection and paving operations.

The project is expected to take 19 months to complete.

Container traffic at Port of Salalah rose 3 per cent to 922,000 TEU in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same period a year earlier, while general cargo terminal operations registered growth of 10 per cent, handling 1.621 million tonnes.

Port of Salalah chairman Abdul Aziz Ali Shanfari anticipates container terminal volumes to grow marginally this year over 2011 levels, with the general cargo terminal business achieving overall growth of 3-4 per cent, similar to last year.