Northern China’s Caofeidian, one of fast growing deepwater coal ports in China, is planning to kick off construction on its third phase coal terminal in late July, aiming to further expand coal handling capacity, sources reported. 

Relevant parties have started to invite public bidding for construction of the terminal as well as procurement of relevant facilities that would help expand the port’s coal handling capacity by another 50 million tonnes to 200 million tonnes per annum.

The move signals a full-scale commencement of construction of the third phase project, two years after the official approval of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Bid documents showed the terminal will include two 100,000-tonne loading berths, two 70,000-tonne loading berths, and one 50,000-tonne loading berth.

The entire project will be carried out in three stages, with the initial stage planned to start on July 26 and taking 24 months. Upon completion in late July 2016, Caofeidian port will have additional coal loading capacity above 20 million tonnes.

With construction planned to start on August 1 2016, the follow-up stages will take 22 months and finish by May 2018, according to the bid documents.

Following the expansion, Caofeidian port’s overall competitiveness will be further enhanced, and more coal produced by leading miners (e.g. Datong Coal Mine, China Coal and Shenhua) would be delivered to the port by then.

Caofeidian port has been expanding its coal handling capacity vigorously over the past few years. It completed the second phase coal terminal in April last year, adding 50 million tonnes of capacity to the first phase, which had a handing capacity of 100 million tonnes annually.