Work on the €126m main contract starts in September and will involve the construction of 1,200m of quay and dredging which will result in draught alongside of 14.5m.

The two year project will be undertaken by the GTM genie Civil et Services group, which includes Eiffage Construction, Saipem (formerly Bouygues Offshore), and Dredging International. The schedule includes a final four months for evaluation. Ahead of this, in the spring of 2009, the PMA will hand over the quay to the stevedoring companies for the landside development phase. Fos 2XL is due to be operational a year later.

Total cost of the project, including preparatory and access work since last summer, is more than €400m. Public finance of €206.4m is coming from the PMA together with national and regional government grants. The combined Port Synergy and MSC outlay is estimated €200m to €250m. Fos 2XL is expected to generate some 4,500 direct and indirect jobs.

Through the first four months of this year container throughput at Marseilles-Fos was up by 5% to 326,000 TEU. The total included a 9% increase to 230,000 TEU in east-west trades handled at Fos. April proved exceptionally busy in all cargo sectors, with total throughput rising by 33% to more than 10m tons, as the port cleared the backlog from strike action the previous month. Passengers numbers rose by 12% during the period as the Marseilles cruise season started in earnest.