Anaklia Port Competitor? APM Terminals to Build Port in Poti, Georgia
APM Terminals, owner of the Poti Port in Georgia, plans to build a new port in Poti, a port city in western Georgia. According to East Gate Group’s Supervisory Board Chairman, Irakli Iashvili, the port may aim to cover the demand of freight services in Georgia for the next 100-150 years. If implemented, the project will be a serious competitor of the Anaklia Port in terms of attracting financial resources, as well as transportation.
The company has already completed an Environmental Impact Assessment study. The first stage of the project, expected to be completed in 2018, includes the construction of two new deep-water ports where the annual throughput capacity will be one million Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) containers, while it will be possible to receive 9,000 TEU capacity ships at berth.
According to the company, after conclusion of the project, the capacity of annual turnover of the Poti mega-port will be 50 million tons and 2 million TEU containers. The largest ships in the Black Sea will be able to enter Poti mega-port which will be 16 meters deep.
In the first stage, it is planned to invest USD 250 million. According to APM Terminals, the company will announce a tender in the near future.
“Economies around us are not as developed, they don’t have that much freight for Anaklia Port’s capacity as it was announced. 100 million tons of freight is an unimaginable number. Currently, we have two more or less profitable ports. If a third one of this scale is added, it is sure to be unprofitable as there will be competition, including in terms of freight. Attracting freight is not possible merely by having a port,” stated Iashvili of East Gate Group, which owns Georgian Trans Expedition Poti, the largest and most technically equipped container terminal in Poti.
After winning an open tender to build a USD 2.5 billion deep sea port near Georgia’s Black Sea coastal city Anaklia, Anaklia Port will be built by Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC), which is a consortium of Georgia’s TBC Holding LLC and Conti International LLC from the United States.
According to ADC, the Georgian government has committed USD 100 million to build a port for berth container ships with a capacity of 10,000 TEUs. The port will have the capacity to process 100 million tons of cargo and annually contribute 0.5% of the GDP by 2025.
Ana Akhalaia