New Deepwater Terminal at the Port of Gdansk - ceremonial contract signing

22.09.2015

On 21 September 2015 the Management Board of the Port of Gdansk Authority SA and the company OT Logistics SA duly signed a 30-year lease on a plot of land located in the most promising area of the Port of Gdansk - in the Outer Port, next to the DCT container terminal and the dry bulk terminal run as a joint venture between the Northern Port and the Sea-Invest group.

Ultimately, this is the spot where the deepwater transshipment terminal will be built in order to handle agricultural commodities, i.e. grain and fodder.

"This area of 26 hectares along with the adjacent Ore Pier will be the perfect place to build a professional terminal, thanks to which it will be possible not only to increase the competitiveness of OT Logistics in terms of handling agro goods, but also to ensure the Port of Gdansk terminal infrastructure for this type of cargo on a scale which currently does not exist at any other neighbouring Port," said CEO Dorota Raben.

The construction of the terminal at the Port of Gdansk will be a large-scale investment that will have an impact not only on the port and the region where it will be located, but the entire Polish economy.

"The Port of Gdansk since the very dawn of its history has been a Polish seaport which mainly handled grain. Today, history seems to have come full circle, because it is possible that soon the Port of Gdansk - thanks to this new investment - will again be cited as the largest Polish port for the transshipment of grain," emphasised CEO Raben.

In accordance with the obligations adopted by both parties, the target annual handling capacity of the terminal will amount to not less than 2 million tonnes of cargo, and the final completion of the investment will occur within 60 months from the date of leasing the property, although the investor has declared that the launch of the first phase of the project will take place only a dozen or so months from now.

The decision regarding the choice of Gdansk as the location of such a terminal was no accident due to its favourable parameters which can handle the largest ships entering the Baltic Sea.

Poland is one of Europe's leading producers of grain and an important player in this market segment. At the moment Poland holds fourth place in EU grain production, second only to France in terms of the area cultivated and fourth in the EU in terms of grain exports. Transshipment via Polish ports accounts for as much as 90% of the total foreign trade in grain in the country.

The main countries to which the Polish grain is exported do not only include European countries like Germany, Spain or Denmark, but also Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Algeria.

The new deepwater terminal will support short-haul sea shipping, and also long-haul overseas routes, both in terms of import and export. For example, last year Poland exported and imported a total of nearly 7 million tons of grain, of which wheat accounted for the vast majority.

"The new terminal will be a great tie in with the currently observed market trends and the development strategy of the Port of Gdansk," remarked CEO Dorota Raben. "Therefore, the port will gain not only additional throughput capacity and a well-connected professional deepwater terminal, but also a reliable Polish business partner who, together with the Port of Gdansk, will develop the activity of the port within the most promising areas of this 1000 year old port," added CEO Raben.

2015 is an extremely important year for the Port of Gdansk. The excellent results of transshipment operators based in the port, thriving terminals, new investments in infrastructure in both the Port Authority and port partners increasingly reinforces our belief that the Port of Gdansk is a safe and promising place to locate businesses connected with the port and port-related operations.

The consolidation of the port's range of services with a modern professional and deepwater bulk terminal for agricultural products is also another confirmation of the feasibility of the forecast included in the port's strategy for 2027, which indicates that the next decade could bring even three times the volume of freight to Gdansk. If this happens, the Port of Gdansk will become the leading port - not only for containers, but also bulk cargo - in the busiest basin in Europe - the Baltic Sea.