It was exactly one year ago on Sunday that Moulay El Hassan, Crown Prince of Morocco, officially opened the container terminal which we built for APM Terminals in the Port of Tanger Med. How better to celebrate the first anniversary of this huge project than with a report about its construction? 

In the spring of 2019, our group delivered a brand-new container terminal in the Moroccan city of Tanger for the international container terminal company APM Terminals with headquarters in The Hague. APM Terminals MedPort Tangier, the terminal’s official name, is strategically located in the Strait of Gibraltar, one of the world’s major shipping routes, where 60,000 ships pass through every year. The terminal has an annual capacity of 3.3 million TEU, and it handled over a million containers last year.

Hi-tech

The terminal, which is used as a transhipment hub for Maersk Line and its alliance partners, helps to improve global supply chain performance by attracting more ships and creating more route options. It was built using the very latest technologies for ultra-efficient freight handling and a significant increase in capacity, making APM Terminals MedPort Tangier one of the most hi-tech container terminals in the world.

12 minutes

Willemen Groep started construction on a 60-hectare site in 2017. A project team consisting of 60 people spent two years realising the container terminal from start to finish. We were responsible for all the civil engineering works, including a 1.2 km long crane beam, all the infrastructure works and the construction of all the on-site buildings (administrative office building and a maintenance garage for straddle carriers), with 650 construction workers employed on site at peak times. The above video summarises in just 12 minutes this great feat which took two years to complete.

Largest STS cranes in the world

APM Terminals installed 12 of the world’s largest double trolley STS cranes. These cranes weigh 2,500 tonnes, are 144 metres high at full extension, have a range of 72 metres and can perform both twin and tandem lifting, ensuring even the largest container ships can be loaded and unloaded quickly, safely and efficiently.

The construction of this huge terminal was not our group’s first assignment on the African continent, but it was certainly the largest.

Some interesting figures:
• 163,749 m² asphalt
• 340,884 m² bricks
• more than 800,000 tonnes cement-bound crushed rock sub-base
• 15,200 metres of continuous foundation beams
• 16,400 metres of rails
• 414 x 26.5 m bored piles with a diameter of 1.35 m
• 51 x reefer racks
• 9 x substations
• 50,000 metres continuous low- and medium-voltage cables

 Watch the timelapse video