Second Jan De Nul Dredger Arrives at Anaklia to Take the Port Down to 17.5 Metres

Al-Idrisi, the second large dredger deployed by the Belgian contractor Jan De Nul at Anaklia, has entered the Georgian deep sea port, Anaklia Sea Port director Zurab Sitchinava said.

Two vessels from the Jan De Nul fleet, Al-Idrisi and Tristao da Cunha, will now carry out dredging operations in the port area together, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development said.

Tristao da Cunha arrived a month earlier to deepen the seabed by approximately three metres along a section of the breakwater spanning roughly one kilometre. With both vessels working, the target changes: the larger ships will take the seabed down to 17.5 metres.

That figure is the whole point of the project. A draught allowance of 17.5 metres is what lets Anaklia receive high-capacity container ships operating in the Black Sea, including panamax and post-panamax classes that the region's existing terminals cannot handle at full load. Georgia's current container gateways at Poti and Batumi are constrained by depth, which caps the size of ship that can call and pushes transhipment onto feeder services from larger hubs.

Sitchinava said the work will be completed on schedule.

The Georgian government is building Anaklia under a landlord model. Under that framework the state remains the sole proprietor of the core marine and port infrastructure, while operations are contracted out. Officials argue the structure lets the state develop the port in partnership with several nations and companies at once, on the reasoning that a state-owned quay wall attracts cargo from more directions than a single concessionaire would.

Alongside the port infrastructure itself, the state has undertaken to build the road and rail links serving Anaklia. Those connections carry as much weight as the dredged depth, because a deep berth without inland capacity simply moves the bottleneck ashore.