Da Nang approves $288m Chu Lai channel for 50,000-dwt ships

By Amara Osei

Da Nang has approved VND7.585 trillion ($288 million) for a 6.58-kilometre shipping channel designed to admit vessels of up to 50,000 deadweight tonnes at Chu Lai.

Known as the Cua Lo project, the route will be 140 metres wide and dredged to 13.2 metres below chart datum. It will serve the Tam Hiep and Tam Hoa port areas in southern Da Nang. Together, those specifications set the intended vessel-access ceiling, not a promise of 50,000-dwt calls every week.

What does this change for shippers?

Operationally, very little before late 2028. Construction is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of this year and finish in late 2028, so the channel's capacity remains a paper number until the works are finished.

Once open, the project should give carriers a route for larger commercial vessels and forwarders another southern Vietnamese gateway for regional cargo. Shippers could gain cheaper inland options, although the stated benefit remains a project objective rather than a published tariff.

Authorities forecast that the route will handle 7.5 million to 9 million tonnes of cargo annually by 2030, 14 million tonnes by 2040 and 22 million tonnes by 2050. The 2050 figure is about 2.4 times the high end of the 2030 range, or 2.9 times its low end.

That 22-million-tonne endpoint equates to roughly 60,000 tonnes per day if spread evenly, though actual cargo will arrive unevenly. The forecast measures tonnes rather than TEU and gives no container mix, vessel-call schedule or freight rate. Container shippers should not turn it into a box-count promise.

The commercial prize is lower logistics cost. For carriers, the deeper approach, pilot boarding facilities and navigation aids should support vessel access; for forwarders, Chu Lai becomes a second gateway to evaluate against existing southern Vietnam routes. Shippers need to compare full delivered cost, including port and inland charges. A new gate need not produce a lower bill.

The intended catchment stretches beyond Da Nang into Vietnam's Central Highlands and neighboring Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Regional forwarders may be able to consolidate cargo for maritime transport through Chu Lai, but forecast tonnage does not establish actual demand from those markets. Some optimism is clearly doing the freight planning here.

How will the project be financed?

Da Nang is pursuing the channel through a public-private build-transfer contract. Payment to the investor will come through land allocations covering approximately 1,335 hectares earmarked for industrial, logistics and urban development.

That links the maritime works to a much larger property program. The investor receives development land as its consideration, while Da Nang advances its gateway strategy without the project standing or falling only on a conventional port-fee model.

Dai Quang Minh Real Estate Investment, part of Vietnamese conglomerate THACO, is preparing the feasibility study. However, investor selection remains incomplete, so Dai Quang Minh is not yet the confirmed delivery vehicle for the project.

The distinction matters for anyone assessing execution risk. The 1,335-hectare allocation describes the intended payment mechanism; it does not yet demonstrate a final investor, completed feasibility work or secured construction. The paperwork is moving, but the construction contract has not landed.

What has to be built?

The physical scope goes beyond deepening the approach. The project includes pilot boarding facilities and navigation aids, plus two breakwaters extending more than 1.2 kilometres. Shoreline protection at the entrance will limit sedimentation.

The entrance works matter because the promised 13.2-metre depth has to survive a working harbor environment. Breakwaters and protection are intended to support the access channel, while pilots and navigation aids help vessels use it safely. The dredging headline is only half the civil works.

Da Nang has set an ambitious sequence: start in the fourth quarter of this year, complete in late 2028. That leaves a long gap between approval and usable capacity, during which costs, design and construction conditions can change.

The city presents Cua Lo as a route that will reduce logistics costs and strengthen Chu Lai's role as a maritime gateway for the Central Highlands, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. If the forecasts hold, carriers gain larger-vessel access, forwarders gain a regional option and shippers may see lower logistics costs.

For now, the tonnage belongs to a forecast, not a sailing schedule. The next checkpoints are feasibility sign-off, investor selection, a fourth-quarter construction start and delivery by late 2028. The approval is concrete; the throughput remains conditional.