DjenDjen: The Port That Opens the Sea to Landlocked Countries

Grâce Houngbédji — Cotonou, Bénin — 2026-09-06

There is a geographic injustice that Africa can fix: that of the landlocked states — Chad, Mali, Niger — condemned to depend on distant ports and fragile corridors. Algeria's answer is called DjenDjen: a deep-water port on the Mediterranean, less than 50 nautical miles from the Suez–Gibraltar shipping route, which its operators present as Algeria's largest port — 210 hectares, with a draft of up to 18.20 meters.

The facts are there, and they are quantified. The port's actual traffic reached 7.63 million tonnes landed in 2025, up 5%, with containers up 65% year on year — according to the port company itself. In November 2024, the arrival of DP World alongside Algerian operator EPAL changed the game: the quay extended to 570 meters, vessel-handling capacity raised from 2,500 to 6,000 TEU, and the reception of the MSC Tamara, the first 265-meter container ship ever hosted in Algeria — an announced transit saving of around twenty days for goods heading to Africa.

The expansion, for its part, matches the ambition: in January 2025, the Ministers of Transport and of Public Works announced a plan to bring the port to 26 million tonnes of cargo and 5 million containers a year, with quays at 20 meters of draft — an envelope of around 310 billion dinars for a 3,100-meter extension of the dike, a 3,000-meter quay and a 1,300-meter breakwater, over 48 months of works. By way of comparison, Algeria's ports as a whole handled more than 130 million tonnes and 1.8 million containers in 2024.

Above all, DjenDjen is conceived as a gateway to the Sahel. President Tebboune said it in September 2025: Algeria intends to open its ports to landlocked states. The Minister of Foreign Affairs repeated it in April 2026 before the joint commission with Chad: goods bound for N'Djamena, Bamako or Niamey can be unloaded at DjenDjen, travel Algerian rail and road — the Ramdane Djamel–Annaba–Constantine link and the Jijel–El Eulma highway, 110 kilometers, are under construction — and reach the heart of Africa.

Algeria is not building a port: it is building an architecture — port, rail, road, energy — from which the entire Sahel can benefit. That is real economic diplomacy: giving others what they need, without imposing anything. Trade, for its part, will follow.