São Paulo – Morocco’s Tanger Med port handled 3 million TEUs in 2014 through this Tuesday (23rd). TEU is the unit equivalent to a twenty foot container. The volume is up 20% from 2013. The information was released by the port’s manager, the Tangier Mediterranean Special Agency.
In 2014, 2,100 container ships docked at Tanger Med – 800 at the APMT terminal and 1,300 at the Eurogate terminal, respectively up 11% and 34%. The two terminals combined span 40 hectares, with 800 metres of quay and 16 cranes.
Currently, operational capacity at the port in Tangiers is exactly 3 million containers, but expansion works are underway for two new terminals to add capacity for a further five million containers, driving total capacity up to eight million. The next terminal due for completion is set to begin operating in 2015.
Tanger Med has links to 127 ports in 57 countries, including eleven ports in Latin America, seven of which are in Brazil: Itapoá, Navegantes, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Paranaguá, Rio Grande and Suape. Of all containers handled at the Moroccan facility, 97% are exported and 3% are meant for domestic consumption.
The Tanger Med company, which lends its name to the port, and the National Ports Agency have a project to build a new container port in Morocco’s Nador city, a few kilometres away from the border with Algeria. The plan came up three years ago, but development is yet to begin.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
