DP World has secured a 10-year extension to its concession to operate the multipurpose terminal at the Port of Luanda, Angola, pushing the agreement through to 2051, the Dubai-based ports operator announced at the inauguration of a new terminal building in the Angolan capital.
Alongside the extension, DP World committed an additional $90 million in investment over the next two years to expand quay length, operating area and handling equipment, raising the terminal’s design capacity to 1.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from roughly 500,000 TEUs currently.
Terminal Upgrade Details
The expansion will extend the terminal’s quay by 222 metres and add 10 hectares of operating area, work that DP World says will allow the facility to accommodate two Post-Panamax vessels simultaneously for the first time. The project includes the acquisition of three ship-to-shore gantry cranes and 12 semi-automated rubber-tyred gantry cranes to handle the added throughput.
DP World said the upgraded infrastructure is expected to cut vessel turnaround times by up to 50 percent once complete. The company has operated the Luanda multipurpose terminal since 2021 and has already invested more than $260 million in modernising the facility, during which container volumes handled there nearly doubled to more than 350,000 TEUs, supported by an additional 28,000 square metres of yard space.
Strategic Positioning for Central and Southern Africa
Mohammed Akoojee, DP World’s chief executive and managing director for Africa, said the expansion would strengthen Luanda’s position as a gateway for West and Central Africa and support new shipping services capable of calling with larger vessels. The investment comes as DP World pursues a broader continental strategy, with the company’s Africa division citing plans to invest $3 billion across the continent over the next five years.
The announcement was made on the sidelines of the Angola Transport and Logistics Hub Summit in Luanda, where DP World also opened a new two-floor terminal headquarters building valued at $32 million. The Luanda deal fits into DP World’s wider global capital deployment, with the company reporting that it allocated roughly half of its $3 billion annual capital budget in the first half of 2026 to projects spanning the UAE, the UK, India, Saudi Arabia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Operational and Trade Impact
Angola’s capital port handles a significant share of the country’s container trade, and the capacity increase to 1.2 million TEUs is intended to relieve congestion as volumes grow. Faster vessel turnaround and the ability to berth two Post-Panamax ships at once are expected to improve schedule reliability for carriers calling the West African coast.
DP World framed the investment as supporting broader goals including local employment, industrialisation and export competitiveness, while positioning Luanda as a hub for sustainable regional trade flows. The concession extension to 2051 gives the operator long-term certainty to recoup the new capital outlay and plan further phases of development at the terminal.
Why it matters
The deal underscores continued foreign direct investment in African port infrastructure even as global carriers navigate volatile freight markets and geopolitical disruption elsewhere. A larger, faster Luanda terminal could help Angola compete more effectively as a regional transshipment and gateway hub for Central and Southern Africa, potentially reshaping calling patterns for container lines serving the west coast of the continent. The long-term concession also reflects DP World’s strategy of locking in multi-decade operating rights to secure returns on capital-intensive terminal upgrades across emerging markets.
Source: DP World / The National
