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Marrakech – The Port of Casablanca received the cargo vessel KRASZEWSKI on Monday at the Somaport Multipurpose Terminal. On board: a gas turbine and its generator destined for a national energy project of strategic significance. The two components weigh 495 and 405 tonnes respectively – placing them among the heaviest industrial loads handled at the port.
The operation was carried out on behalf of ONEE, Morocco’s national electricity and water utility. Both units are bound for a future combined-cycle power plant under construction at the Al Wahda Dam, north of Ouezzane. The Agence Nationale des Ports (ANP) confirmed the successful discharge in a press communiqué dated Tuesday.
The ANP classified the cargo as “hors-gabarit” – out-of-gauge freight that exceeds the standard dimensions and weight parameters that conventional port equipment, road infrastructure, and transport vehicles are designed to handle.
“The arrival of the KRASZEWSKI marks a major milestone in the delivery of industrial equipment of exceptional scale,” the authority stated. The turbine, its generator, and its base required the mobilization of specialized heavy-lift and handling gear of very high capacity.
The agency detailed that the discharge demanded meticulous coordination between port teams, the shipowner, the freight forwarder, and the logistics operator managing the project.
The ANP described the operation as confirmation of Casablanca’s standing among the best-equipped port infrastructures in Africa for receiving heavy industrial cargo. The Somaport Multipurpose Terminal, per the agency, demonstrated the technical responsiveness and expertise indispensable for high-stakes logistics of this nature.
Beyond the logistical feat, the ANP placed the delivery within Morocco’s broader push to strengthen energy infrastructure. The equipment will feed a combined-cycle plant designed to expand the country’s electricity generation capacity and support its energy transition trajectory.
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“By facilitating the delivery of this type of strategic equipment, the Port of Casablanca reinforces its role as the preferred gateway for Morocco’s major industrial and energy projects,” the communiqué concluded.
The turbine discharge arrives amid intensifying modernization across Casablanca’s port complex. In a separate but parallel development, the Marsa Maroc multipurpose terminal at the same port recently received its first large-capacity vessel – a 200-metre bulk sugar carrier chartered by the Cosumar Group.
The ship delivered approximately 55,000 tonnes of raw sugar, a call that would not have been feasible before the completion of the first phase of a quay-deepening programme that brought the terminal’s draft to 12 metres.
Khalid Mansour, Director of Marsa Maroc’s Bulk Business Unit, specified that the 230 linear metres of quay already rehabilitated and deepened to minus 12 metres now accommodate vessels approaching 60,000 tonnes in capacity.
The operator’s target is to extend the rehabilitated quay line to 530 metres by 2028, which would give the terminal a total handling capacity exceeding eight million tonnes.
For Cosumar, Morocco’s principal sugar industry player and a major importer of raw sugar for refining, the access to larger vessels translates directly into reduced unit transport costs and fewer port calls for equivalent volumes.
Anas Jamal Eddine, the group’s Director of Commercial, Marketing and Supply Chain, characterized the deeper quays, combined with joint operational improvements, as enabling “significant port and logistics optimizations” for the company’s competitiveness.
Together, the two operations – one centred on oversized industrial cargo, the other on high-tonnage bulk commodities – reflect a deliberate expansion of what the Port of Casablanca can absorb.
Both feed into the same logic: equipping the country’s busiest commercial port to meet the infrastructure and industrial demands of Morocco’s ongoing energy and economic transformation.
