The Power Plant Jetty That Became a Deep-Sea Port
Matarbari's commercial future is being built on a channel that already moves coal for a 1,200 MW power station.
It's easy to talk about Matarbari purely as Bangladesh's future deep-sea port and forget that the whole site exists in its current form because of a power plant. The 1,200 MW Matarbari Ultra Super Critical Coal-Fired Power Plant came first, and everything the maritime side of the project is built on, the channel, the original jetties, the dredging precedent, was put there to feed that plant with coal. Current coal-jetty or offshore-energy operations must be kept separate from future commercial-terminal design capacity; confirm the intended facility and the latest project or terminal instruction before fixing a call. Matarbari attendance remains assignment-based; commercial-port design figures are not current open-port availability.
How the coal jetty became the seed of a deep-sea port
Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh Limited (CPGCBL) built the original jetties and excavated the 14.3 km navigation channel specifically to bring coal and construction materials in for the power plant. It was only after JICA ran a data collection survey in 2016 that anyone seriously floated using that same deep channel for a commercial seaport, the depth needed for handling coal carriers turned out to be exactly the depth Bangladesh's other ports were missing for general cargo. That survey is the direct ancestor of today's Matarbari Deep Sea Port project.
What's actually moved through the coal jetty
The first international vessel to use the channel was the MV Venus Triumph, a 120-metre general cargo ship, back on 29 December 2020. The real proof of concept for deep-draft handling came later: on 25 April 2023, the Owusu Maru, about 229 metres long with a draught of about 12.5 metres, became the first coal carrier to berth at the power plant jetty, at the time the largest cargo vessel ever to berth at any jetty in Bangladesh, carrying 80,000 tonnes of coal. Since then the jetty has supported repeated coal-supply calls. Current cumulative ship and cargo figures should be taken from the latest CPA or project-owner report because the total changes with each delivery programme.
Why the power plant connection still matters operationally
Even once the commercial deep-sea terminal is fully built, the coal jetty doesn't go away, it continues serving the power plant's ongoing fuel supply needs, which is a separate, steady cargo stream from the container and multipurpose terminal traffic the new project is designed around. For agents, this means Matarbari isn't a single homogeneous facility; it's effectively two operations sharing a channel, an established coal-import operation feeding a power station, and an emerging commercial port still under construction.
What an agent needs to know handling a Matarbari coal call today
A coal-jetty call follows the current authority, project-owner and terminal process for channel movement, pilotage, tug, berth, clearance and cargo documentation. The agent must identify which body issues each instruction and charge for the actual call; the active facility should not be described as if the future commercial terminal were already open.
Calling at Matarbari's Coal Jetty?
Send vessel name and IMO number, intended facility or jetty, cargo, LOA, arrival draft, ETA and terminal or receiver nomination. The duty desk will verify whether the request concerns an active facility, offshore operation or the developing commercial-port project before confirming scope.