Maersk Terminal Awarded Concession for Tanger Med 3 in Morocco

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On October 28, following a meeting of the Moroccan Royal Cabinet, it was announced that APM Terminals, the terminal operator under the Maersk Group, signed a concession agreement with the Tanger Med Port Authority to develop and operate the new Tanger Med 3 container terminal, while also extending the concession for the TC1 container terminal. The agreement was actually signed on July 31, 2026, approved by Moroccan government decree No. 2.26.743 on September 9, and publicly announced on October 28.

Tanger Med 3 is located west of Tanger Med 2, featuring a newly built 1,200-meter quay line and adding an annual throughput capacity of 4.5 million TEU. Moroccan authorities state that the terminal's capacity ceiling could reach 5 million TEU, with operations planned to commence in mid-2031. The project investment is divided into two parts: public investment of 8 billion Moroccan dirhams (approximately 730 million euros), and private investment by the concessionaire exceeding 16 billion dirhams (approximately 1.4 billion euros), totaling more than 2.5 billion US dollars. APM Terminals is responsible for the full-cycle project development, financing, and operation of the terminal. The construction of the terminal is being advanced in parallel with the expansion of Tanger Med's passenger and roll-on/roll-off facilities, and provisions are being reserved for the eastward extension of Tanger Med 2.

TC1 is the first container terminal operated by APM Terminals at Tanger Med Port, having commenced operations in July 2007, with current annual capacity of approximately 1.5 million TEU. The TC1 concession was extended through a supplementary agreement, signed on the same day as the Tanger Med 3 agreement. Tanger Med Port's container throughput in 2025 was 11.1 million TEU, a year-on-year increase of 8.4%, with part of the growth attributed to the recent commissioning of the latest expansion of the TC4 terminal operated by APM Terminals.

Morocco's port expansion is being advanced in parallel with developments in Nigeria. On September 7, 2026, APM Terminals signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nigerian government, entering into exclusive negotiations for the Badagry deep-water port project. The project is planned to cover an area of 496 hectares, with Phase 1 involving the construction of a 1.2 million TEU container terminal. The project cost is estimated at approximately 2.78 billion US dollars, adopting a 45-year Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOT) concession model. Concurrently, APM Terminals is in discussions with the Nigerian Ports Authority regarding the extension of two existing concessions at Apapa Port and the Onne West Africa Container Terminal (WACT). The Apapa concession was signed in March 2006 for a 25-year term, expiring in March 2031; APM Terminals has previously committed an additional investment of 600 million US dollars in Apapa Port.