Port Project in Morocco: A Global Logistics and Production Center

An article in April 11, 2016 edition of GLOBAL TRADE MAGAZINE speaks to a new large scale seaport investment at TangerMed 2, which is the large-scale expansion of the existing Tanger Med port, which opened in 2007.  APM Terminals already operates the existing Tanger Med port, and also the port across the trait of Gibraltar in Algeciras, Spain.  Combined, these assets will comprise a globally significant transload and manufacturing center.  With expectations that to handle 8.2M TEU’s by 2018, this port would be the largest hub in the Mediterranean and Africa.

Beyond the important logistics role of transloading cargo from vessel to vessel, the wider project has objectives to become an important economic center with substantial amounts of value-add manufacturing.  The Tanger Med complex includes four export-oriented free-trade zones.  Already the complex houses over 800 companies, including a Renault auto factory, which is the largest in Africa.  Suppliers to Mercedes, BMW and Peugeot are also located there, in what is now a significant auto cluster.  Products manufactured there can be at the OEM assembly plant in Europe in 2-3 days while enjoying a sizable cost advantage over other competitor locations.

This project represents the sort of joined-up strategy that will help shape how logistics and production will intersect in some highly strategic locations.  There’s a bit of obvious similarity with Panama but there are other more established settings with some similar opportunity.  We’ll be talking more about this in the coming months

The article from GLOBAL TRADE:

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 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 $864 million.

Maersk Line will be an important customer of the new terminal. The new terminal 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. It 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 Tangier, 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 four-thousand feet has been completed by the Tanger Med Port Authority, which is part of TMSA.

“Morocco and its port arm, TMSA, have been very supportive of APM Terminal’s vision for the western Mediterranean,” said APM Terminals CEO Kim Fejfer. “APM Terminals MedPort Tangier will bring important innovation and future capacity into the western Mediterranean market on one of the world’s most strategic seaways, the Strait of Gibraltar.”

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 of 18,000 TEU capacity and above.

The location of the Tangier and Algeciras facilities provides a natural transshipment location for cargoes moving on vessels to and from Africa from Europe and the Far East on the primary east/west shipping route through the Mediterranean Sea. Over 200 cargo vessels pass through the Strait of Gibraltar daily on major liner services linking Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa. While African ports at present account for only 4.5 percent of global port throughput, the United Nations 2015 World Population Prospects Report projects that more than half of the world’s population growth between 2015 and 2050 will occur in Africa, with the African population more than doubling from 1.1 billion to 2.4 billion over the next three and a half decades. Significant investment in port and transportation infrastructure will be required to meet the anticipated needs of the expanding African population and corresponding economic growth.