Rijeka Gateway, Croatia’s ‘biggest’ logistics project, steps into final phase with maiden boxship berth

August 13, 2025, by Sara Kosmajac

The Rijeka Gateway, a joint venture (JV) between Denmark-based shipping colossal A.P. Moller-Maersk’s APM Terminals and Croatian investor Energia Naturalis (ENNA Group), has entered the final testing stage with the arrival of its first containership.

According to APM Terminals, the Rijeka Gateway, considered to be the ‘largest’ project in the logistics sector in Croatia, recently welcomed the 170-meter-long, 1,440 TEU container vessel named M/V Cape Fulmar, which is set to remain docked at the terminal for one month.

As disclosed, Cape Fulmar arrived from Port Said, Egypt, and it will be used as a platform for the training and testing of all operational processes and scenarios under conditions “almost identical” to those when the terminal commenced operations.

More specifically, per ENNA Group, over the course of the next four weeks, the operations of all terminal equipment, including the 1,700-ton shore-based ship-to-shore (STS) cranes, which were manufactured by the Chinese company ZPMC, will be inspected to ascertain that everything is ready for the opening.

The Croatian player shared further that, following this, the inaugural ship carrying commercial container cargo at Rijeka Gateway is anticipated to dock on September 12, 2025. The vessel will arrive from China, after which the cargo is planned to be transported onward by train to neighbouring Hungary and Serbia, Gregor Glušič, Chief Executive Officer of ENNA Logic and ENNA Transport, revealed.

With a stage one capacity of 650,000 TEU and the ability to accommodate vessels up to 18,000 TEU, Rijeka Gateway is expected to act as a strategic point of ingress for goods bound for Central and Western Europe, APM Terminals’ officials have elaborated.

To remind, construction work on the Rijeka Gateway project began in September 2023, when the involved parties announced the terminal would become “the most advanced and remote-controlled container terminal in this region of Europe.” During the first phase, encompassing two years, around €200 million is said to have been invested.

In mid-October 2024, it was revealed that the gateway had secured electricity from renewable energy sources to power the operations of its container terminal, a move projected to enable a ‘significant’ reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

As divulged, electricity supplier ENNA Next, part of the ENNA Group, will be the one to issue the required green certificates to confirm that the energy supply is sourced entirely from renewable sources, either solar or wind.

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