Work starts at Casablanca

National port operator Marsa Maroc hopes that the new facility will reduce current congestion and enable Morocco to take full advantage of its geographical location close to the European Union.

Marsa Maroc has not yet revealed the new handling capacity to be added, nor given a timetable for completion, suggesting that the full details of the project have yet to be finalised. However, the company has revealed that it will add new berths for “medium-sized ships.”

As part of the expansion plans, work on providing a new access road to the port has been given the go ahead, following the government’s decision to provide US$13M in funding. The road, which is scheduled for completion in April 2010, should improve the flow of traffic between the various terminals and the city of Casablanca itself.

As previously reported (WorldCargo News, September 2008, p18), Marsa Maroc is also developing together with Spain’s Autoterminal SA the first car terminal at Casablanca with a storage capacity for 5000-6000 vehicles in a 3-storey building. It is expected to be completed by the middle of next year.

Casablanca handled 26.3 Mt of cargo last year, more than a third of all cargo that passed through Morocco’s ports. The port, which currently boasts 35 berths, is mainly served by ro-ro ships and cellular vessels of less than 1000 TEU, on short routes between North Africa and Europe.

However, the new port of Tanger-Med is rapidly usurping Casablanca’s position as Morocco’s most important port and is expected to have handling capacity of 8M TEU by 2015. Casablanca, in comparison, is designed to handle just 750,000 TEU.