Poland’s second largest box port hopes to have built a new larger container-handling complex by 2027.
Speaking to WCN at Intermodal Asia 2019 in Shanghai, Jakub Koczara, manager of the marketing department, Port of Gdynia, stressed the need to expand and have facilities for handling mega ships deployed on Asia/Europe services. Currently, in Poland only DCT Gdansk has this capability.
The executive said: “Our external [offshore] port is needed as we do not have space to expand on our existing footprint near the city. Our plan is to build a four berth facility with a total wharf line of 2,500m that so that vessels of 400m+ with draughts of 16.5m can call. We envisage a throughput capacity of 2.5M TEU a year.”
However at an estimated development cost of €1.2B, it is something the port authority cannot do on its own. “We are looking for partners and we do not mind whether they are shipping lines, terminal operators or financial investors to help.”
In the meantime the port authority is dredging its existing fairway and container-handling facilities so that larger neo-panamax (14,000 TEU) ships can call. It is also electrifying and refurbishing about 7,000m of rail track in the western part of the port and developing new logistics and storage facilities on 150ha of land.
In 2018, Gdynia handled 803,871 TEU, up 14% on the previous year.