APM Terminals has been named as the operator of a new container transshipment terminal at the Tanger Med 2 port complex. APM Terminals already operates the APM Terminals Tangier facility at Tanger Med 1 port, which started operations in July of 2007 and handled 1.7 million TEUs in 2015. The new terminal will have annual capacity of five million TEUs. Total investment in the new terminal is expected to be EUR 758 million.
Maersk Line will be an important customer of the new terminal. The facility is scheduled to open in 2019, under the terms of a 30-year concession agreement with the Tanger Med Special Agency (TMSA), which has responsibility for the development and management of the Tanger Med port complex.
The Tanger-Med port complex is strategically located on Africa’s northwest coast near the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea on the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea meet. Tanger-Med is the second-busiest container port on the African continent after Port Said, Egypt. The new APM Terminals MedPort Tangier terminal will increase the port’s total annual throughput capacity to over nine million TEUs.
APM Terminals MedPort Tangier will feature state of the art technology and have up to 2,000 meters of quay length and will feature the technology pioneered at the APM Terminals Maasvlakte II Rotterdam terminal which opened in 2015.
APM Terminals will create a new organization in Tanger, adding a large number of new jobs and be responsible for the completion of the terminal yard, surface, buildings, container handling equipment, and integrated automated systems. The quay wall construction and site reclamation for the first 1,200 meters has been completed by the Tangier Med Port Authority, which is part of TMSA.
For APM Terminals the Western Mediterranean is an important market. APM Terminals Algeciras, on the Spanish side of the Strait of Gibraltar, operates in tandem with APM Terminals Tangier as an integrated Western Mediterranean transshipment hub. APM Terminals Algeciras handled more than 3.5 million TEUs in 2015, and has completed a major upgrading of its cranes and quay infrastructure to accommodate Ultra-Large Container Ships (ULCS) of 18,000 TEU capacity and above.
