Opened in 1962 the Port of Tema was Africa’s largest man-made harbour and now handles 80% of the nation’s import and export cargo and most of the country’s chief export, cocoa.
It was the largest maritime project, in terms of value, carried out by the company up to that date. A complete new port built from what was only a small fishing village 18 miles to the east of Accra It comprised 3 miles of breakwaters, 13 deepwater quays and a tanker berth in the main harbour and 3000 feet of quays in the fishing harbour.
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Digitised 16mm silent film of the opening ceremony in 1962. You can see Halcrow Senior Partner Peter Scott and the first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, both making speeches.
The project began with a request from the Government of the then Gold Coast, now Ghana, for a report on the economic the exploitation of the River Volta for hydro-electric power. There followed a survey and study into the exploitation of the River Volta, which led to a report by Halcrow that a new deep water port should be built at Tema. The site was well suited to serve the pressing needs of the country as a whole. Moreover it was close enough to the proposed Volta River hydro-electric project to serve it and its associated aluminium smelter.
The Government quickly accepted the recommendations on the port and in June 1951 instructed Halcrow to proceed with the detailed investigations and subsequently to design and supervise the construction of the first phase of the new port.
One of the principal features of the project was the construction for the main harbour of considerably more than 2 miles of rock fill breakwaters in the open sea, in depths of up to 46 feet of water and maximum width on the seabed of some 200 feet.
A full range of general port facilities and equipment was provided, including an oil berth for 30,000 ton tankers, a dockyard with a dry dock, slipways, workshops, harbour offices, cocoa sheds, ship loading and conveying systems, a comprehensive road and rail network and a separate fishing harbour complete with its own wharves, slipways, harbour buildings and cold stores.
The four cocoa sheds themselves were outstanding in size and were designed to give an area free from supporting columns of 440 feet by 170 feet.
Halcrow returned in the 1980s to extend both Tema and Ghana's other main port Takoradi.