The first containment basin of Darsena Europa’s future container terminal is due to be completely consolidated in 2026. The project’s Special Commissioner, Luciano Guerrieri, gave the announcement during a visit to the construction site this afternoon organized with the President of Tuscany Regional Administration, Eugenio Giani, and Darsena Europa Deputy Commissioner, Roberta Macii.
Over the last few months, the group of companies in charge of carrying out the work, the Temporary Joint Venture led by Sidra, the Italian division of the Belgian giant Deme, together with Fincantieri’s Infrastructure subsidiary, Sales &Fincosit, has been busy levelling out the mounds of material on-site. The final step is now to drain all 339,000 m2 of the containment basin.
“By the end of 2025 we will have consolidated the first 80,000 m2 of land,” Mr. Guerrieri said. “Within two years, and well before the offshore infrastructure has been built, we will have completed part of the future container terminal areas,” he added.
Speaking about the recent debate on the immediate use of yards while waiting for the entire facility to be completed, Mr. Guerrieri stressed that this is a delicate discussion that will necessarily have to involve the entire port cluster: “It will be possible to temporarily allocate the new yards to other uses until the first phase of Darsena Europa is completed.” “However,” he admits, “these solutions must not jeopardize our final objective, i.e. Darsena Europa container terminal.
A similar concept was expressed by Roberta Macii: “Our objective will be to reconcile the needs of our business stakeholders, who are asking us when it will be possible to use these areas, with the Authority’s planning requirements, developed and defined in our Port Masterplan. Our Port Masterplan does not exclude the new yards being used temporarily in a profitable manner. We will begin to define the procedures as best we can when we feel that the areas are sufficiently large enough to allow us to accommodate other commercial activities,” she said.
During his visit to the construction site, President Guerrieri also focused on the offshore facilities: “On 7th October, the companies presented us with the executive project for building the breakwaters and carrying out necessary dredging operations,” he explained. “It’s a huge project that also includes the monitoring plan, which will have to be agreed upon with Arpat (the Regional Environmental Agency). We want to do things right: the executive project is currently undergoing technical verification. We hope to be able to approve it over the next few weeks. By the end of the year, we expect to be able to start building the breakwaters. In the meantime, our commissioning body will work on preparing the call for tenders for building and operating the container terminal.”
“Today we are witnessing the first part of Darsena Europa,’ said President Giani. “This area is gradually looking more and more like the place that will offer a future for the city of Livorno and its local regional area. With this infrastructure we will be able to aspire to host large vessels and handle new cargo traffic. The work program is proceeding according to the commitments made at the time by Commissioner Guerrieri and Deputy Commissioner Macii. Great progress has been made for Tuscany’s ports.”
Translation by Giles Foster