Comparing just the number of ships is meaningless. It equates small ships designed to handle dry cargo with massive container ships; docking ships vary greatly in tonnage or cargo-carrying capacity and yet both ships would appear as (1) on records.
Berbera is able to handle Post-Panamax ships, these are some of the largest modern container and passenger ships in the world, an entirely different league from Bosaso.
It is certainly possible to compare the activity of both ports, the docking records are available online. Looking at both Berbera and Bosaso, activity in Berbera is constant, whilst Bosaso can go days without seeing a new ship:
Bosaso port's activity:
View attachment 145625
For the period 29/09 - 09/10, Bosaso port was only active for the three days of 30/09, 03/10 and 07/10. The activity is quite sporadic and limited. The majority of entries belong to RAS SYAN which is a tugboat and not a ship.
Berbera port's activity for the same period:
View attachment 145626
Levels of activity at Berbera are on an entirely different scale. The port is working every single week day, and unlike Bosaso, the majority of entries are cargo ships and not tugboats.
To get an even better idea of the real port activity for both ports, one has to also look at the size of ships arriving, not just the number of ships. To compare the difference in tonnage activity, all you have to do is calculate the tonnage of arriving/departing ships for a specific period, filtered so that you avoid double-counting:
Total tonnage of vessels at Bosaso between 29/09 and 09/10 =
29,517 Tons (DWT)
(Total tonnage of vessels Sarah F, African Sun and Jaohar Ranim,
link).
Total tonnage of vessels at Berbera between 29/09 and 09/10 =
191,020 Tons (DWT)
(Total tonnage of vessels True Faith, Okee Ortolan Delta, Iris of Sea, Glamor, Mwafak, Albaraka 5, GFS Pride, MSC Alice, BAMEDHAF, Okee August, AT Bright Star, Trust 1,
link)
We are talking about Berbera currently having roughly 7X the activity of Bosaso.
And this is even before completion of expansion work at Berbera which will 3X its capacity from the current 150,000 TEUs to close to 500,000 TEUs, there is just no comparison.
Bosaso has no further room to expand, the port is limited severely by remoteness, geography and lack of population to serve. Its clear that its best days are behind it which explains why P&O continue to refuse any meaningful investment in the port to the point where Puntland's president requested a tugboat from Djibouti and not P&O. And once a dry port similar to the one being constructed in Gambadhe is initiated in Sanaag, and its ports like Maydh are rehabilitated, Bosaso will lose more business as Sool and Sanaag get completely captured by Berbera.
Berbera on the other hand is just getting started, hard to believe, but its true. Currently less than 10% of Ethiopian activity is observed, very soon this number will go up to 30%. At which point economies of scale and efficiencies will drive even more business through Berbera once the freezone is completed.
