The Dębicki Canal in the Port of Szczecin will be widened and deepened and several of its quays rebuilt. This is part of a series of projects to enable the port to accommodate larger vessels and handle more cargo. This will make it more competitive, in line with EU maritime transport goals and with the port’s vision of being a leading freight destination in the South Baltic Sea.
The Polish port of Szczecin upgrades Dębicki Canal to allow access to larger ships
- 11 May 2020
This project is in alignment with separate EU-funded work to deepen the 67 km-long Szczecin-Świnoujście waterway to 12.5 m, to allow for the passage of larger vessels. This will reduce transport and operating costs for shipping companies.
Bigger and better
Currently, the port can accommodate ships with a maximum draught (the distance between the waterline and the ship’s keel) of 9.15 m and a maximum length of 215 m. The current project, and others, will enable this to be increased to 11 m and 240 m, respectively. In comparison, Gdańsk and Gdynia can accommodate ships with a draught of 15 m and 13.5 m, respectively.
The Dębicki Canal will be deepened to 12.5 m and widened to 200 m. Several quays will be rebuilt and one new one built. This includes reconstructing the Słowackie and Czeskie quays to give them a combined length of just over 1 000 m.
Water and electrical infrastructure, plus equipment and infrastructure to handle containers – such as railway lines – will be installed at all the quays.
Parts of the shorelines will be reinforced to prevent erosion and new debris from being deposited in the canal. Two areas bordering the canal, Ostrów Mieleński and Ostrów Grabowski Island, covering a total of 64 hectares, will be rebuilt and used for depositing dredged material.
Declining share of cargo
The port is part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and the Baltic-Adriatic Corridor. It provides access to road and rail transport and inland waterways and handles all types of freight, including containers, coal, ore, oil and cereals.
The total volume of cargo that passed through Poland’s four main ports (Gdańsk, Gdynia, Świnoujście and Szczecin) increased by 46 %, from 55.5 million tonnes in 2007 to 86.7 million tonnes in 2017. However, Szczecin’s share of this total fell from 17.1 % to 10 % over the same period, due to its limited capacity.
Lower costs, greater volumes
The project is expected to contribute to the region’s socio-economic development by increasing the volume of cargo the port can handle.
Widening and deepening the Dębicki Canal and the separate project to deepen the Szczecin-Świnoujście waterway to provide access for larger vessels will cut the unit costs of seaborne transport. It will help reduce the time cargo spends at sea and the distances needed to transport it.
Much work has already been done – and is ongoing – to modernise the port. A project to improve road infrastructure has been completed and another to provide better railway access is expected to be finished in mid-2022.
A non-major project to improve the port’s Kashubian basin is also under way. In addition, the Szczecin and Swinoujscie Seaports Authority SA is improving the port’s technical infrastructure.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Improvement of the access to the port of Szczecin in the Dębicki Canal area” is EUR 100 650 787, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 52 529 291 through the “Infrastructure and Environment” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period. The investment falls under the priority “Transport infrastructure”.