Environmental Impact Assessment to the expansion of the Port of Sines completed

The port of Sines – situated on the West coast of Portugal – is the busiest national port in what comes to cargo handling (around 29 million T in 2012, equivalent to 553 thousand TEU).

Its location (in line with the large trans-Atlantic routes and also situated in the North-South axis of the African-European routes), adding to its privileged physical characteristics, make the port of Sines one of the most promising on the European level: it is a deep water port, directly opened to the sea, with a rocky bottom, comprised of 5 specialized terminals and 2 inner harbours.

Aiming to keep up with the global commercial tendencies, the port of Sines intends to increase the capacity of the container terminal (TerminalXXI) to reach 3 million TEU/year, ranking the port as one of the most important container ports in the Iberian Peninsula; the planned interventions will also allow receiving the biggest world vessels – the future giant container carriers of the class super-post panamax or Triple E (the same vessels that have motivated the on-going interventions in the Panama canal), that can carry 18.000 TEU.

Nemus, in consortium with Hidromod, has recently finished the final report of the Environmental Impact Assessment on the expansion of the port of Sines, a project which includes regularization of the bedrock, landfill, paving, construction of infrastructure and superstructures, namely: expansion of the quay length from 940 m to 1.800 m, expansion of the jetty from 1.500 m to 2.500 m and enlargement of the container depot area from 34 ha to 95 ha.
These interventions shall be finished by 2023.