Spain: A ceremony was held at the construction site of the new container terminal that Terminal Catalunya (TERCAT) is developing at Muelle Prat in the Port of Barcelona on Friday, shortly after the signing of a €280 million (US$379 million) financing agreement for the project.
The ceremony, hosted by TERCAT and its parent company Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), was attended by local politicians, port officials and logistics and industry businessmen. Sixte Cambra, president of the Port of Barcelona, highlighted the important "qualitative leap" that the terminal will represent for the port.
"With this new terminal, the port will reach a capacity to handle 5.5 million TEUs a year," said Cambra. "This will strengthen our position as the main logistic hub in the Mediterranean, will allow us to consolidate ourselves as the gateway to southern Europe for products from Asia."
With a total area of 100 hectares and a quay length of 1,500 metres, the terminal at Muelle Prat will have an annual handling capacity of 2.65 million TEU. According to TERCAT, the facility will be the most advanced semi-automated container terminal in the Mediterranean.
The first phase of Muelle Prat Container Terminal is expected to be operational in 2012, an annual capacity of 1.5 million TEU. It will feature a 1,000-metre quay, eight super-post-Panamax quay cranes with an outreach of 22–container rows, a yard area of 60 hectares, 18 container-stacking blocks with 36 one-over-five automated stacking yard cranes (ASC), a fleet of shuttle carriers, tractors and trailers, an eight-track rail terminal, and administration and engineering buildings.
The freight railway terminal at Muelle Prat will be the largest railroad at port facilities in Spain. It will be equipped with dual gauge (European and Iberian) rails, which will enhance its intermodal connections.
