CAIRO: Digging a new 9.5-kilometer long canal parallel to east Port Said Port will take five months to lift 17 million cubic meters of sand, head of Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Mohab Mamish said Thursday.
Work at the new canal is scheduled to begin Aug. 7, one day after the inauguration of the New Suez Canal Project.
The new canal “will benefit Port Said residents, and aims to upgrade Port Said Port’s ranking to be one of the best 10 ports in the world,” Youm7 quoted Mamish as saying.
It will allow a two-way traffic of vessels entering the Suez Canal through the northern terminus of Port Said.
Vessels entering the canal from the northern terminus have to wait for a few hours before passing through the canal; by diverting the course of the water way, vessels will no longer need to wait, SCA economic advisor Abdel Tawab Hajaj told The Cairo Post Sunday.
The SCA agreed to contract the ‘Alliance of Challenge;’ a combination of more than six companies that have already completed the dredging of the New Suez Canal Project, to dig a new Port Said canal.