zoomImage Courtesy: Witteveen+Bos

Colombian port operator Royal Port S.A. plans to construct a new port on the mouth of the Magdalena River, near the city of Barranquilla in Colombia, due to the need for additional capacity.

Witteveen+Bos, the Netherlands-based engineering and consultancy firm, will conduct a feasibility study on behalf of Royal Port S.A. The company has joined forces for this project with two subcontractors: the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) and Colombia’s Antea Group.

Royal Port intends to use the study in order to obtain the required port concession from river management authority Cormagdalena.

Additional capacity is needed for maritime transshipment, transshipment of wet and dry bulk cargo and containers from river vessels as well as for storage.

The new port will cover a total area of 134 hectares and will be suitable for both inland and sea-going vessels.

In the first phase of the project, Witteveen+Bos is to investigate the technical feasibility of the planned port using hydrodynamic modelling techniques and a simulation to demonstrate the plan’s nautical safety.

This phase is expected to be completed in October 2016 and will be followed by the detailed design of the port. This work will be carried out partly in the Netherlands and partly in Colombia.