According to the Ministry of Transport of Kazakhstan, the dredging project in the waters of the Aktau Port area is progressing in an orderly manner. The main construction is scheduled to commence in late July, with the entire project planned to be completed by the end of 2026. Due to the continuous decline in the water level of the Caspian Sea, such dredging operations need to be carried out on a regular basis. The core goal of the project is to enhance the safety level of port navigation and expand the cargo throughput capacity of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor.

Current construction progress

As of now, the project has completed all topographic surveying and mapping, data collation, and analysis, laying a solid technical foundation for the main construction. Currently, in the preparatory stage, professional dredging vessels and supporting engineering equipment are being mobilized, and breakwater construction operations are being carried out simultaneously in the port area.

Significance of project implementation

Upon completion, the navigable water depth of Aktau Port will be increased to 6 to 7 meters, ensuring full-load operations for ships and significantly enhancing cargo handling efficiency, thereby facilitating the development of shipping business in the Caspian Sea. Aktau Port and Kurik Port are the two major Caspian Sea ports in Kazakhstan and also serve as core hub nodes in the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor. This dredging project will directly unleash the transport capacity of the corridor.

Development prospects of the corridor

The Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor can bypass Russia to achieve freight connectivity between Asia and Europe. After the large-scale sanctions against Russia in 2022, market attention has soared: freight volume reached 1.5 million tons in 2022, increased to 4.5 million tons in 2024, and container traffic volume for the first five months of 2026 rose by 30% year-on-year. The industry believes that the Kazakhstan Caspian Sea ports are the bottleneck of transportation capacity for the entire corridor. This project will break through the capacity constraints, and it is expected that the annual traffic capacity of the corridor will increase to 10 million tons by 2028. The corridor passes through Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea waters, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and subsequently branches into two lines: one to Turkey and the other to the Black Sea, ultimately reaching the EU countries.