Dakar lies 850 miles to the south of the Canary Islands, and is the ‘Gateway to West Africa’ on a major crossroads of sea lanes from Europe to South Africa and South America and from North America to South Africa. Dakar is the capital of Senegal and has a very French character, French as the national language, and the West African franc as the currency. Most of the native population are negroes, 94% of whom are Muslims, of which the largest group is the Wolof. The others are the Fulani or Peul, who are herdsmen, the Serer and the Toucouleur. Three quarters of the population of Senegal live by agriculture growing cassava, cotton, cowpeas, peanuts, groundnuts, maize, rice, sweet potatoes and millet. The large fishing port within the commercial port of Dakar provides a useful source of protein and preserved fish is exported. Dakar is a deep water port with ten kilometres of quays and receives all types of general cargo ship, bulk carrier, container ship, tanker and ro-ro vessels.

The Port of Dakar is the most westerly point on the continent of Africa and one of the major seaports of West Africa. The harbour is outstanding, protected by limestone cliffs, and a system of breakwaters. The City and Port of Dakar has a population of over one million, with over two million people living in the Greater Dakar urban area. The port is located halfway between the mouths of the Senegal and Gambia rivers. Dakar takes its name from the Wolof name for the tamarind tree (Dakhar), and a native Lebu village was located here to the south of the first pier built in the port. Imports and exports include containerised cargo, break bulk cargo, bulk cargo such as cereals, crude oil, refined oil products, phosphoric acid, liquid petroleum gas, sugar cane, peanuts, groundnuts, refined peanut oil, bitumen, caustic soda, chemical products, wine, beers and spirits, milled flour, vehicles, sulphur, clinker, cement, coal, attapulgite (Fuller’s earth or magnesium aluminium phyllosilicate), rice, bleach, fertilisers, corn, urea, fish, gypsum and many other cargoes.

The Port of Dakar is the largest deep water port in West Africa, and the second largest in terms of tonnage after Abidjan of the Ivory Coast. The Port of Dakar caters for all of the shipping requirements of Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia and Mali. The port has forty busy berths and large amounts of container and general cargo storage areas. The Senegalese merchant marine has around two hundred vessels, mostly trawlers with a total of 50,000 grt. The Government of Senegal and the Governments of Morocco and Mauritania operate a shipping link along the Atlantic coast of North Africa. The passenger and freight ferry between Dakar in North Senegal and Zinguinchor in South Senegal is Government owned and managed by the Consortium Senegalese d’Activities Maritimes (COSAMA). Dakarnave, a subsidiary of Lisnave International of Portugal, is responsible for the floating dock and repair facilities in Dakar harbour, and Dakarmarine operates another repair facility. SOCOPAO of Senegal provide ship’s agents, warehousing and other marine services.

Port History

Dakar city lies on the end of the volcanic Cape Verde peninsula with the port two miles north of the tip at Cap Manuel on the east side, with the peninsula forming a natural harbour to the east. The French built trading posts on the Ile de Goree, two miles east of the port, in the first half of the 17th century, and on the coastal Cape Verde Islands of Santo Antao, Santa Luzia, San Vincente, San Nicolau, Sal, Boa Vista, Fogo, Brava, Maio with the current tiny island town of Praia on the island of San Tiago. Cosco of China is in partnership with the local Enapor Shipping to redevelop the ports of these islands.  The modern port of Dakar was established in 1857 when the French built a fort on Cape Verde, although the slave trade had been in existence since 1670. The French Governor of Dakar then signed a treaty with major French shipping lines such as Chargeurs Reunis formed in 1872, Societe Generale de Transports Maritimes (SGTM) formed in 1865, and Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes which ran a service to South America from 1860 but had been founded nine years earlier. Cap Manuel lighthouse was established in 1866 with a flashing white light visible from a range of 25 nautical miles.

Dakar thus became a mandatory stop for all regular sailings of French companies to Brazil and Argentina. The port was dredged and improved in the mid 1860s, and a short breakwater was built at Dakar Point and several lighthouses were put into operation all around the Cape Verde peninsula. The port remained a small peanut exporting settlement until the mid 1880s, when the first railroad in West Africa connected it to Saint Louis, the original colony capital to the north on the coast. Saint Louis has magnificent old French colonial architecture, and is 320 kilometres north of Dakar near the mouth of the Senegal river. It was the capital of French Senegal from 1673 to 1902 and today is on the border with Mauritania. This historic town has recently been raised to World Heritage status as an outstanding example of a French colonial city with balconied hotels and houses lining the streets. The famous Hotel de la Poste is in the heart of the town and counted the famous aviator Jean Mermoz among its guests.

Peanut production then increased in inland Senegal, and the city of Dakar began to grow until in 1902 it was made the Federal capital of French West Africa, composed of eight West African territories. Railways and roads built into the interior of Senegal stimulated economic development by World War I. A new rail line to French Mali opened in 1923, and during the seven years from 1926 to 1933 three new piers were added to the existing facilities in the south of the port. The first French reefer ship reached Dakar in 1932, the steamer Kolente of 3,700 dwt with accommodation for eleven passengers and owned by Chargeurs Reunis. The sister reefers Kakoulima and Kilissi followed within a year, and Katiola and Kita in 1936. Chargeurs Reunis also began an air service to Dakar from France in 1936 to connect with their cargo and passenger ships. An oil berth was added to the north pier in 1936, and deep dredging of the harbour and port approaches was completed. Warehouses were added to Piers 2 and 3 before the start of World War II.

During the three day Battle of Dakar starting on 23rd September 1940, a British and Free French naval force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers attacked Vichy French controlled Dakar in a bid to persuade the Vichy French forces to come over to the Free French cause. The unfinished Vichy French battleship Richelieu was used as a floating gun platform, and the battle ended badly for the Allies with General de Gaulle calling it off in order to ‘save Frenchmen killing Frenchmen’. The British battleship Resolution was torpedoed and badly damaged and had to be towed to Cape Town for repairs.

In 1943, French West Africa and Dakar changed allegiance to the Allies, and many damaged or captured British and Allied merchant ships were freed to steam or be towed back to Gibraltar or the U.K. Peanut oil refining in the port was an important and growing export at the end of the war as the oil refineries in France had been destroyed. Pier 4 in the northwest Darse Basin was completed in the early post-war years, and six oil wharves were constructed in the north part of the harbour. After three hundred years as a French colony, Senegal became a self governing member of the French Community in November, 1958. Dakar and Senegal were linked to Mali in the Federation of Mali during 1959/60, but Senegal became an independent republic on 20th August 1960. The first Fish Dock was opened in 1962 with some 1,854 metres of fish handling wharves completed ten years later.

In 1980, the west side of Pier 1 was deepened from 8.5 metres to 10 metres to accommodate the first container ships to use the port. In 1983, a ro-ro berth was added in the south part of the port, and an additional 10,000 square metres of storage space was added to the west side of the quay. The Port of Dakar Container Terminal with several gantry cranes was in operation by 1988, with two berths for deep sea container ships and an alongside depth of 11.6 metres and 8hectares of container storage. Intermodal transfer of containers to rail and road improved during the five year period 1999 to 2004, and the Container Terminal TAC2 was expanded during these years. The container storage areas have been extended and can now handle 425,000 TEU of imports and exports as well as a further 780,000 TEU of transhipments per annum.

Port Facilities

Access to the port is through a channel dredged to eleven metres depth with a 250 metre wide entrance from the east. It is protected by a natural bay and the island of Goree to the east, and the tidal variation is only 1.2 metres. The port has two separate zones with the fishing port, floating dock and marine repair facilities and naval base in the middle. The North Zone comprises Piers 4, 5, 8 and 10, the Port of Dakar Container Terminal and five oil wharves with a total area of 110 hectares. The South Zone comprises Piers 1, 2 and 3 and covers 23 hectares handling break bulk, bulk cargo, vehicles and ferry passengers. The lengths and drafts of these Piers is now given in metres:-

Shoreside Facilities

The Port Head Office is in the South Zone behind the Mid Basin between Piers 1 and 2, with the East Basin between Piers 2 and 3, and the West Basin between Pier 1 and the Floating dry-dock and naval base. The Port Harbourmaster Office is at the harbour end of Pier 1. Inland rail and road cargo connections are frequent to Chad, Mali, Central African Republic, Burkina Fasso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Kenya, and Botswana. The Port of Dakar’s Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport is nearby for flights to Europe and South America. Port delays can be expected during the three month rainy season from the end of June to the end of September. The Port of Dakar Container Terminal Extension Area to the north of the terminal is large and has increased the transhipment totals of containers.

The International Passenger Terminal (Gare Maritime International) handles passengers arriving by cruise ship or ferry in the Mid Basin between Piers 1 and 2 and in front of the Port Head Office. Large cruise ships calling recently have included those of Holland America Line e.g. Rotterdam, Cunard Line e.g. QM2 and Queen Victoria, Mediterranean Shipping Company e.g. MSC Lirica, Princess Cruises e.g. Ocean Princess, and Regent Seven Seas Cruises e.g. Seven Seas Mariner.

Port Tonnage Figures

The tonnage handled by Port Autonome de Dakar during 2012 was up 4% over that of 2011 and amounted to 12.02 million tonnes, composed of :-

Exports are principally the wealth of minerals found in Senegal such as phosphates, limestone, salts, barytine, barite, kaolin, asbestos, zinc, lead, tungsten, marble, iron ore, copper, chromium, nickel and traces of gold and platinum. Phosphates have been mined since the 1940s and now form one of the key components of the Senegalese economy. Two mines in the Thies region, called Taiba and Lam-Lam some 70 kilometres from Dakar, export the phosphates through the Port of Dakar. Four other phosphate mines have been opened since 1984 at Matam, Cocki, Gossas and Niakhene with a potential output of 500 to 1,000 million tonnes of phosphates, making Senegal into one of the top ten phosphate producers in the world for use as fertilizers.

Cement is another major export from Dakar, with the first cement factory in West Africa opened in 1948 at Bargny located thirty kilometres from Dakar using huge amounts of mined limestone. A second cement factory was opened at Kirene during 2002 to give a joint output of six million tonnes of cement today from two factories with a third opening soon in the Pout region. Attapulgite or Fuller’s earth is also shipped from Dakar to Europe for uses as cat litter and gastric medication. Huge reserves of 750 million tonnes of iron ore have been proven in Senegal, with a massive project now underway to ship the iron ore along a 750 kilometre railway to a new deep water port at Bargny-Sendou near Dakar. Four thousand jobs will be created directly and this figure will quadruple with indirect construction jobs to open up this isolated part of the country. Forestry products in the form of sawlogs, veneer logs, railway sleepers, and sawnwood are a major export, as well as some amounts of crude oil.

The Prime Minister of Senegal and his Ministers were present at the port on 7th May 2013 at an official ceremony to mark the beginning of an upgraded rail service from the port to Bamako in Mali. This direct and fast service will in turn increase the amount of cargo to and from onward destinations in West Africa and the Congo region. A very big fleet of trawlers is based in the port, and together with many visiting international trawlers they land 0.4 million tonnes of fish per annum. The fish research vessels Fouta of 485 grt and Itaf Deme of 318 grt are based in the port. The Senegalese Government has operated research vessels doing research into Atlantic fish stocks since its inception in 1960. The Port Authority owns a Dakar harbour ferry of around 200 grt in Blaise Diagne built locally by the Direction de Constructiones at Armes Navales (DCAN), as well as service vessels based in the port e.g. the buoy tenders Leon Bourdelles of 660 grt and Samba Laobe Fall of 362 grt. Transsene Logistique of Senegal was founded in 1979 for the handling and consignment of international transport e.g. rice, clinker, cement, construction materials and special cargo as well as freight forwarding of private property by sea or air.

Regular Shipping Lines

Delmas SDV Of Senegal

Delmas is a subsidiary of the CMA CGM Group with twelve container ships of 5,700 TEU capacity calling regularly. This size of ship began to call on 9th May 2014 with ships under both the CMA CGM and Delmas brands as well as chartered ships. The CMA CGM Group took over Delmas in 2006 and is now the leading shipping line to West Africa from Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. In February 2014, a second container terminal at Dakar (TCD2) at the DP World Terminal opened to enable the Group to reinforce its position as the leading import and export shipper in Senegal. Delmas has access to a mixed container ship fleet of over 2 million TEU capacity, of which 150,000 TEU are reefer units, to carry general cargo, food and reefer cargo, and hazardous cargo in high cube and standard containers. A string of five services and shuttles operate from Northern Europe terminals and Tanger Med to Dakar, Banjul Bissau, Conakry, Monrovia, Freetown, Takoradi, Abidjan, Tema, Lome, Cotonou and Lagos/Apapa. Vessels on these services recently have included CMA CGM Attila, Blandine Delmas, Julie Delmas, Kumasi (ex Catherine Delmas) and the chartered Annabelle Schulte, Cap Egmont, OS Samsun and Wehr Weser. The container services from Tanger Med operate weekly, and the ro-ro services from Mediterranean ports operate fortnightly.

Maersk Senegal/Safmarine

Maersk Line call every few days at Dakar on three services, WAF (West Africa service from Europe and the Western Mediterranean), MEW (Middle East to West Africa), and FEW (Far East to West Africa). Safmarine vessels call regularly on direct Northern Europe to South Africa services. Vessels on these services recently have included Safmarine Kuramo, Safmarine Nile, Safmarine Nyassa, Safmarine Nokwanda, Safmarine Nomazwe, Safmarine Makutu, Safmarine, Mafadi, Safmarine Mulanje and Safmarine Meru while Maersk Line vessels have included Arnold Maersk, Clementine Maersk, Maersk Diadema, Maersk Duncan, Maersk Denfasar, Maersk Damietta, Maersk Newport and Maersk Norfolk.

Grimaldi

Grimaldi ro-ros and combined container ships and ro-ros call regularly at Dakar on services to West African and South American ports. Grande Amburgo, Grande Gabon, Grande Ghana, Grande Congo, Grande Togo and Grande Lagos have called on the West African service, while Grande San Paolo and vessels of the ‘Republicca’ type of con/ro-ro ship call on the South American service. Grimaldi vessels are engaged on very long voyages e.g. Genoa to Dakar is 1,900 nautical miles, Dakar to Rio de Janeiro is 2,800 nautical miles, Dakar to Buenos Aires is 3,950 nautical miles, while Dakar to Liverpool is 2,500 nautical miles.

Dakar Coastal Ferries

A coastal passenger and ro-ro service is run from Dakar in Northern Senegal to Ziguinchor in Southern Senegal passing the mouth of the Gambia river. The current ferry on the route for Liaison Maritime Senegalese, owned by the Senegalese Government, is Aline Sitoe Diatta of 3,548 grt with accommodation for 258 unberthed and 246 berthed passengers as well as 28 cars. This white hulled passenger ferry was christened in November 2007 for a Senegalese heroine of the opposition to French colonialism in Senegal. Aline Sitoe Diatta was a freedom fighter and a leader of the boycott of the rice harvest in the Casamance region of South Senegal during World War II. The French Government had seized the Casamance rice harvest for the war effort, and Aline led a boycott of workers and was imprisoned in 1942 and died in prison at Timbuctu in Mali on 22nd May 1944 aged 24 years. The name of this freedom fighter is written in large green capital letters across the forward superstructure of the current ferry. The Senegalese national colours of green, yellow and red are prominently displayed on a thirty feet long flag on both sides of her white hull.

The ferry Aline Sitoe Diatta makes two voyages per week of fifteen hours duration in each direction between the ports of Dakar and Ziguinchor. She was completed by the Fr. Fassner Shipyard in Berne although her hull had been built at Gdansk and then towed down the Rhine for completion. She has dimensions of length 76.0 metres, beam of 15.9 metres with a draft of 3.2 metres, and a service speed of 14.5 knots from twin nine cylinder four stroke Wartsila oil engines of 4,900 bhp. Much more attention is paid to the number of travellers boarding the ferry and their safety and security since the horrendous loss of life on her predecessor ferry Le Joola on the route on 26th September 2002.

The Le Joola Tragedy

The famous Sine-Saloum Delta in Northern Senegal has wild mangrove swamps, slow moving twisting rivers, lagoons, forests, dunes and beautiful sand islands such as Guior or Guissanor. It also has a large salt production by the Societe Nouvelle des Salins du Sine Salom. This company has produced iodized salt for nearly a century from the salty water of the Saloum river at Kaolack. The operation produces around 200,000 tonnes of salt per year in large white bags in a very mechanised operation. This has been transported over the years to Dakar in coasters such as Diorhane 1,857/58, Saloum 1587/70, and Kamatane of 3,716 dwt built in 1973 at Nordfjordeid in Norway as Leikvin. It is sold in Senegal and West African States for use in UNICEF and World Health Organisation (WHO) programmes throughout the sub region. The Casamance region of Southern Senegal has beautiful beaches near Cap Skiring at the end of a track road from Ziguinchor, the capital of this area. Intrepid travellers that have headed south from Morocco and crossed through the dangerous war zones in Islamic Mauritania into Senegal are rewarded with many places of outstanding natural beauty and peace.

Dakar City

Notable attractions in the Plateau district of Dakar, the historical heart of the city and just to the south of the port, include the Presidential Palace, the Dakar Grand Mosque built in 1964, Dakar Cathedral, the IFAN Museum of West African Culture, the newly completed Renaissance Monument, the University of Dakar, and numerous parks, markets and zoos. The Mermoz Sacre Coeur district and the Bay of Mermoz are on the Atlantic side of the Cape Verde peninsula and have good beaches not far from the city for walking and leisure. Dakar used to be the finishing point of the long distance annual Paris to Dakar Rally, but due to security threats from neighbouring Mauritania, it was moved in 2009 to Argentina and Chile. Senegal has had a three party democratic political system since 1976 to replace the previous one party system.

The white Presidential Palace is on the Route de la Corniche not far from the port is an historic house whose construction was started in 1902 by Gaston Doumergue as the official residence of the Governor General of French West Africa. When the building was finished later in that year, Dakar replaced Saint Louis as the capital of this French dominated region. This large and extensive building is in the ‘French Colonial’ style and is surrounded by high fences and guarded by red and blue coated ceremonial guards at sentry boxes. The extensive grounds to the rear wrap around two white stone wings of the house and include circular gardens with manicured shrubs, statues and tall flagpoles flying the green, yellow and red flag of Senegal with a green star on the yellow vertical part. President Obama paid an official visit to Senegal for talks at the Presidential Palace on 27th June 2013 with President Macky Sall. The visit ended with a State dinner at the private residence of the President after President Obama had paid a visit to Goree Island in the afternoon.

Goree Island

This small island lies two miles east of the port in the natural bay formed by the Cape Verde peninsula. It was occupied for the first time by Dutch seafarers in 1588. It was a notorious French slave prison and departure point for slaves to work the Caribbean plantations. A museum known as ‘The House of Slaves’ was opened in 1962 to memorialise the final exit point of millions of slaves from Africa, and to remember the terrible human toll of African slavery. One million slaves passed through this house, with a high percentage dying in transit in shackles before reaching the Caribbean. The house was built around 1776 as the home of a wealthy Senegalese woman trader, Anna Colas Pepin. The slaves were kept in the now reconstructed basement cells, with the actual departure point three hundred metres away at a fort on the beach. The final ‘Door of No Return’ is a chilling prospect to behold at this fort, with many sailing ships engaged in the trade between 1670 and 1810. Over 200,000 visitors per year take the ferry from the Port of Dakar to this very emotional place, especially for the descendants of these maltreated African slaves. Ferries leave for the island every one to two hours, and the return ticket is ten U.S. dollars.

Future Developments

The future developments in the port will include the modernisation of the oil wharves to improve the security of tankers moored there with the aim of boosting transhipment traffic. Pier 3, which is reserved for cargo to and from Mali, will be repaired and updated as it is in a poor state. A Fruit Terminal will be built on land between Piers 2 and 3 and will consist of a refrigerated warehouse for all types of fruit and vegetables. A large new container terminal with a capacity of 1.5 million TEU per annum will be built to the seaward of and adjoining the North entrance pier, subject to agreement between the terminal operator DP World and the Port of Dakar. The harbour will be dredged and deepened as at present a depth of 34 feet or 11.2 metres is provided for all deep draft vessels e.g. logging bulkers, container ships, and general cargo vessels. The present water surface area of the port is 177 hectares but this will be expanded when the new container terminal is operational. I wish to thank the Port of Dakar and its excellent website www.portdakar.sn.