The Deurganckdok was officially inaugurated on 6 July 2005. Just a few months later, the first container ship docked and unloaded its cargo. Since then, more than 107 million TEU containers have been handled here, and some of the world’s largest container vessels have passed through the dock.
Back in 2005, the biggest container ships carried around 9,000 TEU. By 2007, ships exceeding 10,000 TEU began calling at the dock. Today, vessels with capacities of over 20,000 TEU are a regular sight. In 2023, the MSC Loreto, the world’s largest container ship with a capacity of 24,232 TEU, visited the dock for the first time.
These ships dock at the two major container terminals along the dock: Antwerp Gateway and MPET. The latter is currently the largest container terminal in Europe. There are 53 gantry cranes spread along 5.3 kilometres of quayside, loading and unloading containers from ships of all sizes. Some 306 straddle carriers place the containers in the right place at the terminal, while four rail cranes place the containers on rail cars. No easy task!
In 2024, no less than 67% of all Port of Antwerp-Bruges container traffic passed through Deurganckdok: some 8.6 million TEUs, and a 6.1% increase compared to 2023.
Today, the terminals at the Deurganckdok are operating at the limits of their capacity, so expansion is essential. This led to the ECA project (Extra Container Capacity Antwerp), with the aim of creating a new dock and optimising the use of existing space in the port for more efficient container handling.
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