December the 19th, 2024 – The Rijeka terminal is leading the way amongst its Adriatic competition, as ports in this part of Europe are set to receive the world’s largest cargo ships from 2025 onwards.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sinisa Malus writes, last week, the largest port in neighbouring Slovenia finally received the green light for the realisation of the largest investment in the last decade.
The company in question, Makro 5 Konstrukcija, which was selected by the Port of Koper to build the new passenger terminal building, also wanted to receive the project for the extension of the container terminal. Since they were rejected by the Port of Koper they turned to the Slovenian State Audit Commission back in mid-November, but withdrew their request for review on Thursday.
According to information from Slovenia’s Delo, the only bid in the entire tender was submitted by Kolektor Koling Inženiring as the lead partner.
According to unofficial information also garnered from that newspaper, Gradtech, Adriaing Koper, Kolektor CPG, CGP Novo mesto and Grafist will also cooperate with it. The offered price stands at a whopping 153 million euros excluding VAT, which is significantly above the estimated value of the works.
ambitious plans for koper, but it lags behind the rijeka terminal
The Port of Koper hopes that by expanding the northern part of the container port, to which a new facility would be added, they will be able to tranship and temporarily store 1.75 million containers per year. That would amount to over half a million containers more than they can currently accommodate. As they explained to STA back in October, with this investment, they want to maintain their status as the largest container port on the Adriatic. As things currently stand, they’re still lagging considerably behind Croatia’s Rijeka terminal.
Construction will most likely continue until the end of 2027, which also follows the dynamics of the construction of the second track between Divača and Koper. As Slovenia’s Primorske novice writes, the sea will be deepened to 14.5 metres for this investment, during which 68,000 cubic metres of silt will be excavated. This will be left at Bonifika in Ankara, around four kilometres away.
The new passenger terminal, for which the Port of Koper received a building permit back in August, should receive its first passengers next spring. Makro 5 reduced their price the most after negotiations and ultimately offered to carry out the works for 2.99 million euros excluding VAT.
At the group level, the Port of Koper generated 242.8 million euros in net sales revenue in the first nine months of 2024. That amounts to four percentage points more than in the same period last year and is in line with their business plan. Net profits reached 49.3 million euros. According to the port’s management, compared to 2023, the revenue structure includes higher revenues from ship transhipment, and also owes itself to a larger volume of container loading and unloading services and other additional services for goods.
On the other hand, due to the shortening of the storage time of containers and other goods in the warehouse, revenues from demurrage have decreased. That has become more than evident from the unaudited report on the nine-month business operations published by the Port of Koper on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange’s website.
Ship transhipment was two percent higher than in the same period in 2023 and one percent higher than planned. It’s now clear that by implementing the expansion of the Koper container terminal, it will throw down the gauntlet to the neighbouring northern Adriatic ports, primarily Trieste and the Rijeka terminal here in Croatia.
the rijeka terminal reigns
It all sounds great for Slovenia, but it will be a very long time before much happens. In the meantime, the Rijeka terminal will become the strongest container port on the entire Adriatic. The Rijeka terminal (Brajdica) achieved record results last year, and continued construction remains also in full swing.
14 million tonnes for the rijeka terminal
The Rijeka terminal will be able to accommodate the largest cargo ships of all very soon. This will be made possible with the construction of new infrastructure. It is also aided by the recently opened D403 road, the most expensive road in Croatia (worth more than 60 million euros). That roads stretches around the City of Rijeka and goes from the motorway all the way down to the waterfront. Then there’s the construction of a railway in the port area, along with the expansion of container cargo handling capacity. This winning combination at the Rijeka terminal will be extremely difficult to beat by anyone, regardless of Slovenian progress.
One of the major strategic state projects being implemented in the field is the giant Rijeka Gateway project. A consortium of bidders part of the world-famous Maersk group, which dictates global trends in shipping and container transport, are heavily involved. They will invest more than 400 million euros in the Port of Rijeka, according to the director of the Port Authority. Through the concession through which they will arrange a new pier, they’ll employ an additional 300 people.
The project of the new Zagreb Deep Sea container terminal is the largest capital project of the Rijeka Port Authority, which is being carried out in two phases. The completion of the new container terminal at the Zagreb Port also marks the completion of a comprehensive project to renovate Rijeka’s transport corridor, the aforementioned huge Rijeka Gateway Project.
The new Rijeka terminal will be completed in mid-2025 and will increase port traffic by 500,000 container units at the port in its first year of operation. The port’s current traffic is 14 million tonnes.
