EUROGATE appointed as Limassol Container Terminal operator in Cyprus
On 25 April 2016, the Cypriot Transport Ministry and the EUROGATE consortium signed the contract for the takeover of Limassol Container Terminal, the company said in its press release. The consortium partners are EUROGATE International GmbH (60%), Interorient Navigation Company Ltd. (20%) and East Med Holdings S.A. (20%). For 16 years up until 2013, they operated the largest feeder shipping network in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Limassol Container Terminal currently has an annual handling capacity of 500,000 standard containers (TEUs), a high share of which is local cargo that supplies the island state of Cyprus. The container terminal has a surface area of 35 hectares and a quay wall length of 800 metres. The navigational conditions here are state-of-the-art: the approach to the port has a depth of 17 m, with a depth of 16 m in front of the berths. There is also a turning basin with a diameter of 600 m. The addition of Limassol brings EUROGATE’s network to 12 container ports.
Thomas Eckelmann, Chairman of the EUROGATE Group Management Board, says: “Limassol Container Terminal is an ideal strategic addition to the EUROGATE Group network. With Tangier in the west, Gioia Tauro and Cagliari in the central and Limassol in the eastern Mediterranean, EUROGATE is now present throughout the Mediterranean region.”
EUROGATE intends to invest in the modernisation of the terminal, especially in new large-scale equipment, the IT system and in site remediation. The container terminal will be integrated into the network of Europe’s largest shipping line-independent container terminal group under the name “EUROGATE Container Terminal Limassol Ltd.”.
The EUROGATE consortium had made a bid for the takeover of Limassol Container Terminal after the Cypriot government had published an international invitation to tender for the privatisation of the port facilities in June 2015. The contract was signed at the presidential palace of Cyprus in Nicosia.