UPDATE: Great Potential for Further Development at Port of Bar, Montenegro

A team of editors of World Maritime News portal has paid a visit to one of the major ports of the Adriatic coast, the Port of Bar in Montenegro.

Over the past five years, the port management was divided into two operators, Luka Bar AD and AD Container Terminal.

Luka Bar AD rated this year’s business operation as less successful than that recorded last year. The management believes that this will be significantly improved by development of transport infrastructure with the inland part of the region.

Namely, the Port is linked by railways to Serbia, and from Serbia to the countries of the Eastern Europe, making it one of the relevant port structures of the South East Europe.

Considering its strategic position as a bridge between the Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, the Port of Bar will be involved in the analysis of the competitiveness of multi-modal transport as viable alternative to road traffic in a route characterized by the crossing of the EU and non EU countries.

The Port takes part in numerous international projects, such as Ecoport 8 and Ten Ecoport and it boasts of excellent cooperation with the Port of Rijeka in terms of training of personnel.

When speaking about investments, Stanisic Rade, Development Division Engineer of the Port commented that an investment of € 4 million in port capacity development included the purchase of Liebherr cranes for loading bulk cargo as well as Caterpillar loaders and a Stihl forklift.

With respect to future plans, the possibility of receiving Panamax ships to the bulk terminal would open new doors of opportunity for the Port. The structure of the bulk terminal is such that, in case of need, it enables further deepening and dredging so as to reach the necessary depth of 17 meters, the current depth being 14 m.

All of these facts indicate that the Port of Bar has a great potential for further development and new business partnerships.

When compared to Luka Bar AD, for the time being the situation at AD Container Terminal is somewhat different.

After the first concession tender failed, the Port Authority has re-called the tender for which only two bidding port operators, out of four world’s biggest port operators who had applied, remained.

Those two are German port operator HHLA and ICTSI from the Philippines. Who will be the new port operator of AD Container Terminal remains to be seen.

Based on terms of the tender, the winner will operate the port for 30 years with an obligation of investing in the terminal’s infrastructure, which abounds in potential for further development and expansion.

Terminal operations are not and will not be hindered by the implementation process of the concession tender.