Koper - Luka Koper, Slovenia's sole maritime port, has wrapped up an EUR 45.6 million investment by acquiring an operating permit for the last section of the new extension of Quay 1, a release from the company said.

The work on this last bit started in mid-2020 with part of the funding secured in the NAPA4CORE project as part of the EU's Connecting Europe facility.

Last year, the port inaugurated a 98.5-metre quayside extension at Quay I of the container terminal and recently added two new on-shore container cranes.

Now a 24,830 sq metre storage area at the new berth, 7D, has also become operational, expanding storage capacity on the quay by almost 15%. The total annual capacity of the terminal has increased to 1.5 million container units.

The port acquired operating permits for each individual section separately, filling them with containers on the go. "This allowed us to substantially alleviate the pressure on storage areas that we have been facing for months due to higher throughput volumes," reads the release from the company.

The expansion of the container terminal will continue. "We are preparing the paperwork to extend the quayside to the north in what will be a much bigger investment," Luka Koper CEO Boštjan Napast said.

Valued at EUR 248 million by 2030, the project comprises an operative quayside in the length of 340 metres and an extra 118,000 sq metres of storage areas apart from cranes and other equipment.

The investment and additional improvements to work processes will gradually increase the annual capacity of the container terminal to nearly two million container units.