Road access the key to Trafaria

Earlier this year, the Portuguese government again changed the base conditions of the tender to relaunch the Vasco da Gama ‘multipurpose terminal’ (originally container terminal) in the Port of Sines. Lack of interest means that the scope gets smaller with every iteration – the terminal can now open with just one berth, with the investment commitment cut to €100M-€150M.

The Port of Leixões (APDL) in Portugal has announced plans to upgrade the north container terminal to handle 1M TEU a year. In 2021, the combined throughput of the port’s north and south container terminals amounted to 700,000TEU, a new record.

In October, APS, the port authority for the Portuguese ports of Sines and Algarve, issued a tender for a new concession covering the multipurpose terminal at Sines. The terminal could potentially, handle containers, dry bulk and project cargo.

Nuno Araújo, president of Portugal’s Port of Douro and Leixões Administration (APDL), has revealed plans to increase the use of intermodal transport, involving investment in areas such as rail, digitalisation and transitioning to cleaner energy usage.

No bids were received for the concession for the Port of Sines’s second container terminal, styled ‘Vasco da Gama’. However, the president of the port authority (APS), José Luís Cacho, has stated that a new, more flexible procedure will be launched as soon as the economic situation permits.

The Port of Ponta Delgada in the Portuguese Azores is investing €46M to expand container handling capacity by almost 70%. Half of the funding is coming from the EU’s COMPETE 2020 programme.