Two dredgers are now working at Anaklia, and the shape of the port is becoming concrete

Jan De Nul, the Belgian dredging contractor, now has two vessels on site: the al-Idrisi joined the Tristao Da Cunha in September. The company puts the pair's combined capacity at more than 70,000 cubic metres of seabed a day. About one kilometre of seabed at the base of the breakwater has been completed, and dredging has begun in the entrance and turning channels, where ships will manoeuvre. On land, stone and aggregate are being placed for the breakwater; that work moves out to sea once the land-based phase is done.

Two published design figures matter more than anything else about Anaklia for anyone shipping goods: the seabed is to be deepened to about 17.5 metres, and the breakwater is to run 1,376 metres. Depth is what lets larger container vessels berth at all, and a breakwater of that length is what keeps a berth workable in Black Sea weather. The design is said to target at least 95% annual operational availability — in plain terms, how much of the year the port can be expected to work rather than sit closed by sea conditions.

The division of labour now on the table is that the state develops the core port and the road and rail links into it, while private partners develop and operate the terminals themselves. That split is the result of a long and interrupted history: a consortium was selected in 2016, the government terminated the agreement in 2020, work resumed in 2022 with the state holding a majority stake, and in July 2026 China's involvement ended, with Georgia saying it would take the development forward. Anyone weighing Anaklia as a driver of land values nearby should keep in mind that the terminals — the part that actually handles cargo — still depend on private investors signing up.

The useful signals from here are not announcements but procurement and permits. The main berth requires a separate procurement, so a tender for it would be the first real sign that cargo handling is being built rather than planned. The same goes for terminal operators: a named private partner with a signed agreement means more than a projected capacity figure. Until then, the honest reading for a buyer looking at land in Samegrelo is that dredging and a breakwater are visibly under way, and the commercial half of the port is not yet settled.