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Associated British Ports has agreed a US$104.2 million loan with the European Investment Bank to partly finance improvements at Southampton's container terminal so it can handle larger container ships.
"The investment is ABP's response to the introduction of ultra large container ships by major shipping lines, principally operating on the key Far East to North Europe routes," the company said, reported Dow Jones Newswires.
ABP will spend a total of $226.79 million to widen and deepen the channel leading to the terminal and install new cranes to handle more containers.
The Southampton container terminal is the UK's second largest in terms of capacity and handles more than 1.5 million TEUs a year. It can accommodate vessels of around 350m in length.
The works, expected to be completed by the end of July, will deepen the channel to 16m from 12.5m and also widen it to 100m in some areas so that ships can pass each other when entering or exiting the port. Four new gantry cranes will be able to accommodate some of the biggest container vessels in operation.
Ultra large container vessels are longer than 366m and carry up to 18,000 containers.
Mega ships are expected to dominate the benchmark Asia-Europe trade route by 2015, pushing out smaller and less fuel efficient vessels.
ABP is the UK's biggest ports company with a total of 21 facilities.
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