24 August 2012, Sweetcrude, PORT-HARCOURT – FIRE has gutted the loading bay of the Port Harcourt port, the port management has confirmed.
The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the bay has the capacity to load 10 tankers with bitumen daily.
Mr Dele Alabi, the Port Manager, told NAN in Port Harcourt on Friday that the fire service unit succeeded in putting out the fire, which occurred Thursday evening, in good time.
He said the incident did not affect shipping activities at the port.
“It happened within a portion of our terminal A close to berth one. But we would not know the extent of what and what were affected.
“But what I can confirm to you is that no ship was affected. Because even yesterday, operations still continued up to this morning.
“And like I told you, the fire was put out at about 6.50. It was confined within the platform of the terminal, the stacking area.
“At the moment, we are still investigating. We are still investigating. We do not know the cause yet, but we hope, as an outcome of the investigations, we might be able to have an idea of what went wrong,” he said.
Alabi said two separate committees, safety and fire audit, had been set up to investigate the cause of the fire.
“They have commenced operations and we expect them to come out with a report within two weeks.
“Ships have been berthing, loading and discharging cargo at the port in spite of the incident,’’ he said. (NAN)
