BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 16
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
APM Terminals Poti, which owns the Poti port in western Georgia, plans to begin construction of a deep-sea pier at the end of March, said Keld Christensen, Managing Director of APM Terminals Poti, Trend reports citing Georgian media.
APM Terminals Poti has officially resumed the process of obtaining the necessary permit for the construction of a deep-sea multi-functional marina as part of the port expansion project.
"The Ministry of Economics promised that we will receive an initial permit at the end of the month, by March 26. The total project cost is up to one billion lari [up to $340 million]. We fully finance the project. The only request to the government is to provide us access to the terminal - both on the roads and via the railway," said Christensen.
APM Terminals Poti expresses its readiness to expand the marina in Poti so that Georgia has a modern logistic gate that will serve cargo ships. According to Christensen, this will make a significant contribution to the development of the Georgian economy.
The company turned to the Agency for Technical and Construction Supervision of Georgia on February 11, 2020, to obtain a land use permit for the construction of a new deepwater port in Poti, which is the initial stage of a three-stage procedure for obtaining a building permit.
The entire project is planned to be implemented in 24-30 months. As reported, the expansion plan for Poti Sea Port consists of two stages of construction and development. The first stage includes the construction of a breakwater of 1,700 meters and a 400 meters multipurpose quay with 13.5 meters depth able to handle dry bulk cargo and an incremental 150,000 TEUs.
This berth will be able to accommodate container vessels of up to 9,000 TEU.
The second stage will include construction of a 300 meters container quay equipped with three state-of-the-art STS cranes. It will double the annual container capacity at Poti Sea Port to over 1 million TEU.
The company plans to load and unload dry cargo. This includes grain from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, scrap metal as well as fertilizers from the whole region.
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