The Moroccan Tangier Med port complex widened the gap with its main competitors in 2021, after having become the leading port in the Mediterranean basin in terms of container traffic in 2020, with a total of 5,771,221 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent) containers handled.
Container activity of the port complex Tanger Med has exceeded the mark of 7.17 million containers TEU at the end of 2021, recording a 24% growth compared to 2020.
This increase is due to the continued ramp-up of the port Tangier Med 2 after the successful start-up of the TC4 terminal in 2019 and TC3 in 2021.
Tanger Med is now ahead of the Mediterranean’s biggest ports, namely the Spanish port of Valencia, which went from third to second place in the regional ranking, with a container traffic of 5.61 million TEU in 2021, up 3.3% compared to 2020, according to official statistics from the Spanish Ministry of Transport.
The port of Piraeus in Greece, which was second in terms of container traffic, drops to third place. The Athenian port, which comprises three terminals in total, two of which are managed by Chinese operator Cosco and the third managed by Greek port authority, handled nearly 5.2 million TEU containers in 2021, constituting a 7% drop compared to 2020.
The port of Algeciras, Tangier Med’s main competitor in the Strait of Gibraltar, is fourth, having recorded a 6% decrease in TEU containers handled in 2020, totaling 4.79 million that year.
The port of Barcelona comes fifth, with traffic of 3.5 million TEU containers, up 19% compared to 2020.
In light of the new European Union regulation aiming to limit gas emission in maritime operations, Spanish port authorities have been warning of a possible loss of traffic to neighboring Tanger Med.
Puertos del Estado, a Spanish state-owned company responsible for the management of Spanish ports, is seeking to avoid the port traffic leakage to Tangier-Med
In a statement to Spanish news outlet Diario del Puerto, the president of Puertos del Estado Álvaro Rodríguez Dapena revealed that parties are “ working on a common front between the three most affected ports in Spain, namely Algeciras, Valencia, and Barcelona, along with other EU nations to tackle the possible adverse consequences of the system.”
In the meantime, the regional achievements for the Tanger-Med complex will soon exceed the Mediterranean, as Tanger Med is expected to climb spots in the international Alphaliner annual ranking of the world’s largest container ports.
Tangier Med was cited among the world’s top 25 in 2021, and is expected to climb to the top 20 for this upcoming ranking, according to the reported data in the Mediterranean.
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