Morocco’s Dakhla Atlantic Port is 62% complete as of June 2026, according to Morocco World News, putting the deep-water megaproject on track for delivery at the end of 2028. The port anchors Morocco’s Atlantic-facing growth strategy for the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region and is already being built into the country’s green-hydrogen export plans.
Key findings
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Overall completion | 62% (June 2026) | Morocco World News |
| Maritime bridge (1.3 km) | 85% complete | Morocco World News |
| Protective breakwaters | 45% complete (first armor layer 80%) | Morocco World News |
| First reclaimed-land platform | 60% complete | Morocco World News |
| Materials moved | 30M+ cubic meters | Morocco World News |
| Estimated project cost | ~12.65 billion MAD (approx. $1.3 billion) | Challenge.ma |
| Construction contract (SOMAGEC-SGTM consortium) | ~€1.2 billion | Maritime News |
| Target completion | End of 2028 | Morocco World News |
A note on the price tag. Headlines about Dakhla Atlantic Port, including earlier coverage on this site, have circulated a range of cost figures — from roughly $1 billion to $1.6 billion — without always naming a source. The most concrete, attributable figure we found is Challenge.ma’s reporting of a 12.65-billion-dirham total cost, which converts to roughly $1.3 billion at current exchange rates — close to, but not identical with, the $1.2 billion euro-denominated construction contract awarded to the Moroccan SOMAGEC-SGTM consortium as reported by Maritime News. We could not independently verify a $1.6 billion figure tied to any named source, so we’re not repeating it here as fact.
The build, piece by piece
The numbers behind the 62% headline tell the more useful story. The 1.3-kilometer maritime bridge connecting the mainland to the port’s offshore works is 85% complete, well ahead of the rest of the project. The protective breakwater system, which shields the future basins from Atlantic swell, sits at 45% completion, with the first layer of protective armor rock already 80% placed. The first reclaimed-land platform — the ground on which quay-side operations will eventually sit — is 60% complete, and work has begun on a second basin dedicated to commercial traffic, per Morocco World News.
Two quays are furthest along the critical path. A 12-meter-deep fishing quay is targeted for delivery before the end of 2026 — the project’s first operational milestone — while a second, 14-meter-deep quay designed for renewable-energy and green-hydrogen equipment is entering its prefabrication phase. Morocco World News reports the project has required moving more than 30 million cubic meters of materials to date, alongside efforts to preserve the surrounding coastal ecosystem.
Independent Moroccan business outlets have tracked the same trajectory over 2026: Médias24 reported the project passing 53% completion in March 2026 and then crossing 60% in June 2026, while TelQuel had projected in January 2026 that the site would reach roughly 70% by the end of the year — a pace consistent with the 62% mark logged mid-year. No outlet has published a materially more recent completion figure than the June 2026 update as of this writing.
What this means for Moroccan and international investors and logistics operators
For entrepreneurs and investors tracking Morocco’s Atlantic ambitions, Dakhla Atlantic Port is not a standalone infrastructure story — it’s a bet on a new trade corridor. A deep-water commercial port at this latitude gives shippers moving between Europe, West Africa, and the Americas a routing option that doesn’t depend on transiting the Strait of Gibraltar, which matters increasingly to freight forwarders managing congestion and geopolitical risk on the traditional Mediterranean-Atlantic route. That positioning sits alongside Tanger Med and the planned Nador West Med port as part of Morocco’s broader strategy of building multiple Atlantic and Mediterranean gateways rather than concentrating trade through a single chokepoint.
The port’s second, 14-meter quay is the detail worth watching most closely for anyone in energy or industrial services: it’s being purpose-built to handle equipment for renewable-energy and green-hydrogen projects, tying Dakhla directly into Morocco’s “Offre Maroc” green-hydrogen program in the southern provinces. That creates a multi-year pipeline of opportunity for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firms, heavy-equipment logistics providers, and specialized marine contractors — most of it still open, since the underlying hydrogen projects themselves are only now moving from land-allocation into feasibility studies (see our companion piece on Morocco’s green hydrogen strategy).
For the regional economy around Dakhla and Laâyoune, the port is one piece of a wider urban and industrial development push, meaning early movers in logistics, warehousing, fisheries processing, and hospitality have a two-to-three-year runway before the fishing quay and, later, the commercial terminal come online — a window that is often more valuable to plan around than the headline completion percentage itself.
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Sources: Morocco World News (June 2026), Challenge.ma, Maritime News, Médias24, TelQuel.
