Africa’s Tuna Hub

Built in the 60s, the fishing port of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, has gone through a major restructuring that has represented a Government investment of CFA Franc 29 billon (USD 51 million).

The Autonomous Port of Abidjan is a major focal point of the tuna industry in the African continent. With annual traffic of more than 664,000 tons of fish (2014), of which over 250,000 tons correspond to tuna. At Abidjan, Africa’s leading tuna industry port, three processing companies are together producing over 60,000 tons of canned tuna at their facilities in Scodi, Peche et Froid and Airone.

The port relies on this modernization and structural investment to strengthen its competitiveness in order to meet the challenge of becoming not only the “first African port between Tangier and Durban,” but also maintaining its leading position as Africa’s Atlantic tuna hub. The Director General of the Autonomous Port of Abidjan, Hien Sie, said that the project will induce the creation 3,000 direct jobs of which 80% will be held by women.

The Abidjan fishing port platform is divided into two areas, including an industrial fishing zone reserved for the foreign fleet with a capacity for15 ships in simultaneous commercial operations, and a chilled fish discharge area allocated to local fisheries.

Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan laid the first stone of the extension and modernization work of the port on Monday June 16th 2014, with completion of the project’s first phase finalized on September 21st after 16 months of strenuous work. The project was conducted by French groups Sogea Satom and EMCC, subsidiary of the Vinci Group, and Dredging International, generating over 1,500 jobs.The first phase, at a cost of USD 51 million, consisted of a new pier measuring over a thousand lineal meters of wharf, built upon 8.2 hectares (20.2 acres), with a lagoon pier 450m long and 16m wide. The new pier provides 1,060 meters of equipped docks, acquiring five hectares of land for industrial and host trawlers of 10 meters draft. The platform also received the addition of a mole (used as a pier breakwater) of seven hectares, taken on Ebrié lagoon as part of the development’s USD 51 million price tag, intended to revitalize the activities of its fishing port.

This additional surface has been created perpendicularly to the existing shore so as to be surrounded by water on 3 sides creating a large pier, offering more space and better conditions for vessels handling. These improvements will help Abidjan deal with competition from other ports in the region that took advantage of the country’s political crisis to take away some of Abidjan’s customers from vicinity countries.

“The first goal of this infrastructure project is to strengthen the supremacy of the Port of Abidjan in all areas in sub-Saharan Africa,” according to Gaoussou Toure, Minister of Transport.

The fishing port extends from dock 14 at Pier 16 on an area of around 200,000 m² of embankment bonded and 80,000 m² excluding customs. The platform of the fishing port, which handles 250,000 tons of tuna annually, is divided into two areas with an industrial fishing zone reserved for the foreign fleet, benefiting from:

• 1,060 m of quay
• 6-10 m draft
• 3 berths on trunk
• A capacity for 15 ships in simultaneous business operations
• 21,000 m² of embankment to repair fishing nets
• 70,000 tons of coldstorage
• Three major seafood processing units
• One fishing net production unit
• Two major repair companies are available to ships

It is the first phase of the modernization project in the Abidjan fishing port. The second, valued at CFA Francs 15 billion, is expected to create ten hectares of industrial land.

Above all, efforts to modernize come as part of a larger aim to cement the nation’s role as the leading African canned tuna exporter, as well as increasing the amount of jobs in the area by promoting the return of production units which previously had to relocate in light of the port’s capacity limitations.