Construction of Hon Khoai deep-water port: Is it possible …?

KS Doan Manh Dung pointed out the basic principles that make it difficult to choose Hon Khoai as a deep-water port.
The People’s Committee of Ca Mau province had a meeting with a number of major economic groups to call for investment in a number of projects in the province.

According to information at the meeting, Ca Mau province is preparing a project calling for investment in building Hon Khoai deep-water port, an international transshipment seaport capable of receiving ships of 250,000 tons, the capacity through the port is 40 million tons / year, and is the main way of circulation serving goods. Ca Mau expects that, when there is a deep-water port, the surrounding area will form and develop industrial zones and clusters, helping to create jobs for people in the area. Concerned about this issue, KS Doan Manh Dung (Ho Chi Minh City Association of Marine Economic and Science), said that water transportation is the optimal transport system for the Mekong Delta because it has a river density of 0.68 km / km2. is a rare high density river in the world. Years ago, there was an idea proposing to build gateway ports for the Mekong Delta on offshore islands such as Con Dao, Hon Khoai, Nam Du. Up to now, in recent years, Ca Mau continues to want to be Hon Khoai deep-water port. However, right from the time the proposed idea was given above, KS Doan Manh Dung made a speech and stated that it is not feasible to make Hon Khoai port because it is wrong in principle. Hon Khoai is more than 6 nautical miles from the mainland Accordingly, in theory the formation and existence of a port has the following principles: A port exists only when the total cost of transport routes behind the port plus costs at the port plus the total cost of the routes. freight forward port is the least. If there is another port with less total cost, the previous port will not exist. He cites 3 examples to support this principle: First, the old Saigon port exists thanks to the total cost of transportation routes from the western and eastern provinces plus the cost of constructing and operating Saigon port and the costs of routes from Saigon port. the places are the least. The reason is that river ships from places to Saigon port are convenient, Sai Gon port has natural depth, the channel for large ships from the sea to enter Saigon port is not dredged. Those factors help shape the old Saigon city. Second, Vietnam used to plan to build Ke Ga port to export aluminum oxide. But at Ke Ga location, there are not enough natural factors for port. If you want to do it, you must invest in building a windbreak system and creating artificial depths. So the cost will be extremely large. Therefore, Ke Ga port project had to be canceled. Third, in the past, Hoi An was a good port. But when it was filled up and the demand for draft of the ship increased, the cost of maintaining the depth was so great that Hoi An became the museum today From here, KS Doan Manh Dung assessed that if you choose Hon Khoai or Con Dao as a port, it is convenient for ships to arrive at the port, but river ships from inland water to the island in the middle of the sea must upgrade from river ships to ships. coastal run, not to mention other issues. “Vietnam must upgrade all ships running in rivers to ships that can run at sea so that river ships can go to Hau river mouth at Tran De estuary and go back to Hon Khoai. This cost is not small for poor countries like Vietnam. This improvement will increase the total post-port costs plus the cost at the port and the pre-port costs will increase. Then, unable to compete with another port appeared with lower total costs. It is important to have a suitable port that can accommodate river ships and seagoing ships and the cost of construction and maintenance of the port is low, “said KS Doan Manh Dung. According to the expert, if opening a river connecting Hau river through Ca Mau to Hon Khoai port, this cost is not small, but will lose land and increase salinity for the Mekong Delta. If building the road from Ca Mau to Hon Khoai land to use road, we will deny the advantage of waterway transport of Mekong Delta. He also noted that the design of Hon Khoai port has not been discussed here with major shortcomings. That is the model of Hon Khoai port that will be alluvial from the north to quickly install the door into the water area of ​​the port. With a counter-clockwise cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere, the water area of ​​the port was exposed. “This model is the porting mindset of Australia in the southern hemisphere where the cyclone is clockwise. The consultant lacks understanding of the local laws of nature,” said KS Doan Manh Dung. said and suggested the policy of building Hon Khoai port should be reconsidered. “Every province has aspirations, but that aspiration must be based on the natural characteristics of that region”, he emphasized and cited for example, the Japanese documents show that the mouth of Ganh Rai bay has a water line – 9.5m to -11m. However, increasing the depth of the mouth of Ganh Rai bay to bring large ships into Cai Mep-Thi Vai port is a big financial challenge. A lesson summed up by countries around the world is that when the natural draft of the port is too small, the investment value increases according to the Parapol line when the draft increases. Meaning that to fight nature, the budget for maintaining the port depth is immense beyond the reach of a poor country.