The slurry pipeline project, which will soon ensure the transport of the entire phosphate production from Khouribga to the Jorf Lasfer site, does not seem to worry the Casablanca port administration. According to an official from the National Ports Agency (ANP), the cessation of raw phosphate exports via the Casablanca port will have no impact on port traffic or revenue.

Indeed, the administration intends to develop other activities (cereal and mining). "Our strategic plan has already anticipated this situation, and as a result, we have thought of alternative activities. Better yet, traffic is so intense within the port that we need new berthing posts to avoid saturation. Indeed, a port must operate at only two-thirds capacity and leave one-third unoccupied," an ANP source explained to us on the sidelines of the Casablanca Port Centenary press briefing held yesterday in the metropolis.

The port of Casablanca usually handles traffic between 24 and 26 million tonnes per year, which is approximately 33 to 35% of national port traffic. Its three container terminals allow it to potentially handle traffic of 1,600,000 TEU. Its two specialised facilities give it an annual capacity of approximately 4 million tonnes of cereals. Even better, it can handle nearly 86% of containers, 60% of conventional cargo (53% of wood and 78% of iron), and 63% of cereals in relation to national traffic.

Therefore, the situation of the port is completely different from that of the ONCF, because the construction of the phosphate transport pipeline will deprive the Office of the majority of its annual turnover, since the transport of this mineral represents half of its turnover (1.5 billion DH).

The commissioning of the new pipeline will therefore endanger the financial balance of the Office and will certainly have impacts on its future investments, since its income will decrease, hence the halt to projects for the extension of the railway network, the modernisation of trains, and the improvement of services.

"Our situation differs largely from that of the ONCF because our strategy is based on replacing one activity with another," our source assured us.

The latter explained to us that the choice of the cereal activity was not due to chance. Indeed, at the end of 2011, cereal imports increased by 22% compared to 2011, which recorded 5.6 million tonnes, i.e., +0.5% compared to 2010. This is all the more so since the port of Casablanca alone concentrates more than 75% of total cereal traffic thanks to significant investments in storage capacities.

The ANP has thus granted the private sector, following tenders, concessions for the construction and operation of two new cereal terminals with additional storage capacities of 68,000 tonnes.

These new facilities have allowed for a clear improvement in the performance of handling cereal ships and have led to a qualitative leap in cereal transit conditions, providing importers with substantial gains in terms of freight costs (reduction of stay time at the quay and improvement of unloading rates).

The nominal unloading rates since the commissioning of the specialised terminals at the port of Casablanca in 2009 are 1,200 T/H with a stay time at the post of less than 4 days, compared to an average of 10 to 12 days in standard posts.