Med competition hots up

No sooner has Tangiers opened up one new container terminal than another is being developed, writes Gavin van Marle

The explosion of new container terminal capacity springing up on the southern side of the Straits of Gibraltar, at the newly developed Tangier Med Port, is going to make for a few very interesting years ahead for stevedores and lines alike in the region.

APM Terminals’ new facility, built in conjunction with local partner, AKWA Group, was officially opened by the King of Morocco last summer, and witnessed the berthing of one of Maersk’s latest container vessels, the 11,000teu capacity Evelyn Maersk. However, it seems that the latter half of last year was dedicated to equipment testing and getting staff up to speed, with few regular services calling at the facility. The terminal offers 800 metres of quay, with a back-up area of 40ha and depth alongside of 16 metres. It is equipped with eight super post-panamax quayside cranes, 29 RTGs and 64 yard tractors, and overall capacity is expected to peak at 1.5m teu. Most of that is expected to be taken up by APM Terminals’ traditional anchor client, sister company Maersk Line, and Cargo Systems understands that the world’s largest carrier has committed to putting around 1m teu through the terminal in 2008. What is unclear however, is what sort of traffic that will be. The carrier accounts for a huge proportion of Algeciras’s 3.5m teu annual throughput, as well as employing other nearby Spanish ports – Malaga and Cadiz – for overflow traffic.

However, given the other developments underway in Tangiers, it may well be that a more significant percentage of the Moroccan port’s cargo will be gateway traffic. The AKWA group, headquartered in Casablanca, is a major Moroccan conglomerate heavily involved in the oil and gas sectors, as well as retail operations, and is a likely source of import/export cargo.

The recent addition of a third vessel to Maersk’s KNSM service, between north Europe and Morocco, and the upgrading of it to a weekly service during the second half of each year to coincide with the country’s fruit harvests indicates that there is a growing base of export cargo from Morocco north to Europe. The service now calls at both Casablanca and Agadir, but given the relative lack of modern superstructure at these ports, there is a good chance that such containerised traffic will ultimately be consolidated at Tangier Med.

Currently, much of this sort of cargo also goes by road and uses the ferry services across the Gibraltar Straits, and the Tangier Med masterplan – drawn up by the government-controlled Tangier Mediterranean Special Agency (TMSA) – sees the creation of eight new ro-ro berths, which will have an annual capacity of 500,000 trucks.

Meanwhile, a second container terminal at Tangier Med is being developed by a consortium comprising Eurogate, MSC, CMA CGM and Moroccan shipping line Comanav – although CMA CGM’s shareholding has doubled since the original concession was awarded, through its acquisition of Comanav.

The terminal will be similar in dimensions to the APM Terminals facility: 810 metres of quay with 40ha of yard and 16 metres draught alongside, which can be further dredged to 18 metres. It will also have a capacity of around 1.3-1.5m teu, and the first 450-metre section of quay is due to be opened in a couple of months. Its opening should allow both MSC and CMA CGM to relay tranship significant volumes between their Europe-Africa and Europe-Asia trades, and both lines are leading operators in the West Africa trades. While observers have long pointed to Algeciras’s vulnerability to competition from Tangiers, some also point to Las Palmas as being in the firing line, given that MSC currently uses it as a staging point for West Africa.

The two terminals are on long-term concessions from TMSA, which also has a remit to develop a large free-trade zone on an adjacent site. Known as Medhub, and under the management of DP World-affiliate, Jafza International, until 2015, the 140ha zone has a range of light industrial and warehousing facilities available, which will allow shippers to perform a range of value-added services. These measures are appearing to bear fruit – at the end of the year, the government signed an MoU with carmaker Renault-Nissan that could see the creation of a new production facility with the ultimate capacity to build 400,000 units per year. Manufacturing could begin as early as 2010.

A second phase of container terminal development has also been planned, which would see the construction of another 2,400 metres of quay with 120ha of yard area, and would provide another 5m teu capacity. cs