A study on the assessment of the requirement of marine sercice vessels for Mongla Port with respect to future demand and IMO guidelines

Abstract

The objective of the study is to assess the future requirement of marine service vessels for Mongla Port Authority (MPA) to meet the increasing demand and to improve the performance of the port for carrying out the mandated responsibilities of different marine services to incoming and outgoing ships as an international maritime port under IMO guidelines. The growing international trade in Bangladesh impacted largely in the maritime activity of the country. It is seen that the growth rate of the cargo and container volume of imports and exports at Mongla port is increasing day by day. However, there are only 32 (thirty two) marine service vessels, out of which 19 (nineteen) vessels are more than 30 years old, 12 (twelve) vessels are less than 15 years of age and one vessel is between 15 to 30 years. Therefore, MPA lacks far behind to provide different marine services due to inadequate and very old marine service vessels. In view of the same, a study has been carried out which comprises the assessment of the requirements of different necessary marine service vessels with respect to increasing traffic demand as well as IMO guidelines to provide essential marine services to various incoming and outgoing ships. Consequently, a procurement plan has been suggested which depicts the number and type of marine service vessels to be procured by 2020 and by 2030 to enable MPA to be developed as a modern maritime port and fulfill the responsibility as the south-western gateway of the country as well as a regional hub supporting transit facilities to India, Nepal and Bhutan.