ANKARA
The Petlim Container Port will be opened at Aliaga, Izmir in the last quarter of 2015, the CEO of the Turkish branch of Azeri energy giant SOCAR told Anadolu Agency on Friday.
The $1 billion dollar port is the size of 75 football pitches. The Petlim Container Port will be the first port in Turkey to allow vessels with a capacity of 11,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, to moor.
The port will also have a 700-meter-long space in 42 hectares and six hectares will be assigned for a service area.
Kenan Yavuz, Turkey's CEO of SOCAR said that the biggest ships in the world will be able to dock in Petlim, which will be the biggest port of the Aegean region, and the third largest in Turkey.
The U.S. investment bank, Goldman Sachs Group, bought a 30 percent share in the port worth $1.4 million, Yavuz said, and added that the partnership between Goldman Sachs and Petkim is an important symbol of trust.
"We see this agreement as a basis for strategic and long-term cooperation," said Yavuz, adding that the port will be an alternative to the Port of Piraeus, the Greek seaport which is one of the largest in the Mediterranean Sea basin.
Yavuz also announced that the Petkim Company and Akbank signed a $212 million credit agreement which will start in three years’ time and will run for 13 years.
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev plan to open the port upon completion in late 2015.
The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, SOCAR, is a wholly state-owned national oil company headquartered in Baku, Azerbaijan.
