DP World has won a 50 year concession for the development o f a greenfield multi -purpose port project at Posorja, Ecuador, 65 kilometres from the country’s main business city of Guayaquil. The $ 500 million initial investment (Phase 1) will include the purchase of land, dredging of a new access channel, a 20 kilometre access road and a 400 metre berth equipped to handle containers and other cargo, the company said in its press release.
Construction is expected to start within the next six to nine months and take around 24 months to complete, resulting in 750,000 TEU (twenty -foot container equivalent ) of capacity. Total investment will be over $1 billion for the entire project with thousands o f jobs during construction, close to 1,000 jobs during operations, along with plans to develop a logist ics zone to create a regional trading hub.
The project will focus on containers with the capability to handle other types of cargo and will be implemented with DP World’s local partners, Consorcio Nobis and Grupo Vilaseca.
Posorja Port will complement DP World’s extensive network in South America by creating a new deep -water gateway for Ecuador’s global trade with a range of benefits that include:
• Access to a 15m draft compared to the current 9.75 metre drafts at the existing Guayaquil ports
• Additional capacity for the Guayaquil terminals which last year recorded throughput of over 1.75 million TEU close to their existing limits
• Innovative sol utions for the world’s largest banana exporting country enabling access to global markets
• Long -term expansion potential with up to about 2,000 metres of berth and over 200 hectares of terminal area