Klaipeda Begins Work on the Largest Port Expansion in Its History
Tilsta will build the southern breakwaters under a EUR 24.5m contract, with nearly EUR 600m earmarked to 2029
The Port of Klaipeda is moving into a new phase of the largest expansion project in its history, with the first works now under way. Site preparation has started in the southern part of the port, where a major new port area will be developed over the coming years.
The southern breakwaters will be built by Tilsta, which won the tender launched earlier this year, under a contract worth EUR 24.5m excluding VAT. Construction is expected to begin this autumn, with the breakwaters forming the first stage of the wider development.
Algis Latakas, chief executive of the Klaipeda Port Authority, said the project would make the country more attractive to investors, strengthen its competitiveness in international markets and support military mobility needs relevant not only to Lithuania but to the wider region. That last consideration has become a recurring theme in Baltic port planning, where cargo capacity and the ability to move heavy military equipment through a berth are increasingly treated as the same investment case.
The new breakwaters will also serve an environmental purpose, helping to limit the flow of salt water into the Curonian Lagoon, the shallow brackish body separated from the Baltic by the Curonian Spit.
The southern expansion will create new space and significantly increase the port's capacity for cargo handling and port operations. Nearly EUR 600m, the largest single share of the port's investment programme for 2026-2029, is planned for the project. Together with investment expected from future tenants, the total value of the development is expected to exceed EUR 1bn, making it one of the largest investment projects currently under development in Lithuania.
Klaipeda is Lithuania's only seaport and its deepwater outlet to the Baltic, which means the expansion carries a national dimension that a comparable project in a multi-port country would not. The phasing places the marine works first: without the breakwaters, the reclaimed area behind them cannot be developed, and the terminals that would occupy it cannot be tendered.
