Fears that the new port at Coega might be abandoned if Canadian company Alcan withdrew its plan to build an aluminium smelter there and a possible Russian investor failed to take its place were yesterday dismissed by Tau Morwe, the chief executive of SA Port Operations (Sapo).

He told a media briefing that plans for a four-berth container terminal at Coega were definitely going ahead. Alcan has been negotiating with Eskom for cheaper electricity for the smelter, which would use a great deal of power. A recent statement said the negotiations were "at a delicate stage".

Coega would be developed as a transshipment port, with container business diverted there from Port Elizabeth, and would have a rail link, Morwe said.

But he admitted that plans to enlarge the container terminal in Cape Town at a cost of R1.3 billion might be derailed through opposition on environmental grounds. In that case the additional business might have to be moved further up the coast to Saldanha.

This, however, "would not be in the interests of Cape Town" and would require high expenditure on infrastructure at Saldanha. Morwe said the possibility of concessioning the running of Durban container terminal, or the future one at Coega, was "no longer on the table".

Alec Erwin, the minister of public enterprises, has made it clear that the ports were core businesses of Transnet, but that it was possible that the terminals could be run as public-private partnerships.

Discussing action being taken to improve efficiency at the ports, Morwe said that over R200 million was being spent on new cranes.

Agreeing that skills would have to be developed to run the container terminal at Coega, he said Sapo was taking advantage of agreements with the ports of London and Rotterdam to help this. But there was a need for local universities to play a part.

There had been a dramatic improvement in easing congestion in Durban, where Sapo was working with the shipping companies, but demand still far exceeded supply. "We are doing what should have been done years ago in terms of acquiring equipment," Morwe said.

Oscar Borchards, Sapo's business unit executive in Cape Town, said local residents had objected to a proposal to enlarge the container terminal in Cape Town at a cost of R1.3 billion, saying that it might cause erosion of the beach at Milnerton.

It was proposed to make the terminal 300m wide and 1km long, increasing its stacking capacity to enable it to handle 1.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units a year.

Another R700 million would be spent on equipping it with six new gantry cranes, 26 straddle carriers and plugs for reefers. Meetings and discussions had been held and the next stage would be a public inquiry.