STRONG SUPPORT for the development of a deep-water port and industrial development zone has come from the South African port authority, Eastern Cape politicians and the state minerals research and technology company Mintek. National Port Authority ceo Siyabonga Gama told the EngineeringWeek newspaper that South Africa needed a deep-water container port at Coega 20 kilometres outside Port Elizabeth because none of the existing ports would be able to cater for the new generation of container ships. Gama says Coega will probably be one of only two ports in sub-Saharan Africa capable of handling Supermax container vessels carrying up to six thousand containers. Coega would, he said, be a hub for container shipping that would feed ports from Luanda to the west to Djibouti in the north-east. The port would initially be built with a draught of 16.5 metres, which is suitable for ships carrying 6 500 containers. Meanwhile, politicians in the Eastern Cape are joining forces across party lines to ensure that the Coega development, as well as the development of a duty-free industrial zone on the west bank of the East London harbour go ahead. Further support for Coega has come from the state Mintek. In its annual report Mintek spells out a two-stage plan for a $1,25bn integrated stainless-steel mill. The first stage of the project involves planned offset investment by German steel giant Ferrostaal in a 120000-tons-a-year cold-rolling mill and also downstream manufacturing industries. If the cold-rolling mill is sited at Coega, it would be able to get its feedstock from South Africa’s Columbus steel plant or foreign suppliers – or a combination of the two. The second stage of the project would involve establishing a stainless-steel plant, possibly with Japanese investment. “The second phase develops the concept of a fully integrated stainless-steel project that would include a 500 000-tons-a-year hotrolled stainless steel flat product mill to provide hot-rolled coil imported in the first phase of the project,” said Mintek CE Paul Jourdan. “The second phase of the project would also require the smelting of ferrochromium and ferronickel, and possibly iron production,” he added. Jourdan noted that Mintek has already undertaken a feasibility study for a $400-million ferronickel smelter at Coega. A ferrochrome plant would cost about R100-million. Mintek is also looking at the possibility of establishing a zinc metal plant in Eastern Cape.