Alexandria Port
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Port of Alexandria is on the West Verge of the Nile Delta between the Mediterranean Sea and Mariut Lake in Alexandria, Egypt. Considered the second most important city and the main port in Egypt, it handles over three quarters of Egypt’s foreign trade. Alexandria port consists of two harbours (East and West) separated by a T-shaped peninsula. The East harbour is shallow and is not used in navigation. The West harbour is used for commercial shipping. The harbour is formed by two converging breakwaters.
Contents |
[edit] History
Alexandria Port is one of the oldest ports of the world since its roots extend to 4000 years, dating back to ancient times by the establishment of a port west of the island of Pharos. It was built in 1900 BC in the same place of an old village called “Rakoda“, its location is north and island called "Pharos", which is currently Ras al-Teen. For several centuries, there has been a substantial decline in this port, and most of it was covered by a bulk of sand. Alexander the Great came to Egypt in 331 BC and started the construction of Alexandria city to be the marine base of his fleet. In the era of Alexander the Great constructed Engineer Dinocrat the port of Alexandria by linking the island Pharos with the beach by a bridge length of about 1200 meters and width of 200 meters. It was called "Altitasnar" and thus two basins one in the north-east and was used for the purposes of war (Eastern Harbor currently) and the south-west and was used for commercial purposes (the current location of the port of Alexandria).
In the Ptolemy era, they built a bridge to connect Pharos island with the new city, this bridge form two ports (the eastern and the western harbors). Ptolemy II built the famous "Polite Tower Pharos" which was considered as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, this was damaged because of an earthquake happened in the 4th century. At the end of Muhammad Ali's era (the builder of modern Egypt 1810-1849) the shipyard was built and "al-Mahmoudia Canal" was dug, since that era Alexandria entered the new era of multi-modal transport. In the era of President Hosni Mubarak, the port of Alexandria has evolved considerably in line with the rapid development of the permanent movement of ships, and the development in maritime transport. President Hosni Mubarak focused on the development of the port of Alexandria so as to eliminate the massive bottlenecks that have occurred in port. The Port of Dekheila was constructed as a natural extension of the port of Alexandria and has been operating temporarily in 1986 to keep pace with the evolution of the movement of ships, means of shipping and unloading, containers and the movement of electronic management. Measures have been taken to implement the intensive development of the ambitious plans for the current and future development of the ports of Alexandria and Dekheila. This is to access the ports to the globe and to recover their status between ports of the Mediterranean Basin.
[edit] Geography
The port is divided into several zones:
- First Zone: Used for general cargo handling.
- Second Zone: Deals with four types of activities: unified cargoes including Ro Ro, passengers terminal, stuffed bulk cargoes, and barge discharge.
- Third Zone: Used for handling general cargo and barge discharge.
- Fourth Zone: Used for handling containers, cement, coal, barge discharge, fertilizers, and general cargo.
- Fifth Zone: Used for handling: molasses, timber, some types of general cargoes, barge discharge, grains and flour.
- Sixth Zone (Oil Dock): Situated at the western boundaries of the port, is used for handling edible oil, oil products and for providing bunkers. It also includes berths used for handling livestock. The ports does not include oil storage facilities, but oil berths are connected to a refinery through a 2 km. long pipeline.
