Turkish competition regulators have given the green light for DP World’s Yarimca terminal to merge with the neighbouring Evyapport terminal, in the port of Izmit, located on the Asian side of the Bosporus waterway.
Under the terms of the deal to create the newly formed entity DP World Evyap, DP World will take a 58% stake in Evyapport, while Evyap Group secures a 42% share of DP World Yarımca. The rebranding will introduce ‘DP World Evyap Yarımca’ and ‘DP World Evyap Körfez’ as the new names for the gateways.
Mehmed Evyap, Evyap Holding chief executive, said: “This partnership combines the global expertise of DP World and the local knowledge of Evyapport and strengthens our presence in the port sector as we expand our investments in this field.
“The new company will shorten operation times, increase service diversity and add value to our customers and Turkey’s trade with efficiencies achieved across the two partnership terminals,” he added.
Combining operations at the two facilities will produce a combined 2,088 metres of berthing space, and will allow more than one ultra-large container vessel simultaneously at both terminals.
Total annual container handling capacity will also exceed 2m teu, and the integrated operation is to be expanded to include project and heavy lift cargo services.
The port is home to a number of major deepsea services, including THE Alliance’s Asia-Mediterranean MD3 service and MSC’s Himalaya Europe-Middle East string, which both deploy vessels in the 13,600 teu size, and the 2M Asia-Mediterranean AE15/Tiger service, which features vessels up to 19,300 teu, as well as a host of intra-Europe services from a variety of carriers, including Turkish lines Arkas and EMES.
However, it is also facing capacity constraints – Yarimca and Evyaport are its only two dedicated container terminals, while there are also two ro-ro terminals and a multi-purpose facility that handle limited amounts of box traffic.
According to the eeSea liner database, Izmit’s total box traffic last year amounted to 2.16m teu, against a nominal port-wide capacity of 2.15m teu, so it is effectively operating at 100% utilisation.
However, by coordinating Yarimca and Evyapport operations at the quays, in the yards and at the gates, capacity could also be increased via greater throughput velocity, as has been seen in other terminal consolidations.
“This is an exciting partnership that will bring significant economic benefits to Turkey and the wider region,” DP World Turkey chief executive Kris Adams said.
“DP World Evyap’s combination of the respective strengths of our existing infrastructures will provide our customers with a powerful new service offering at the heart of this increasingly important region for global trade,” he added.