U.S. investment firm, The Guidry Group, has announced that the governing bodies of the East and West of Libya have formally agreed to jointly support the development of a deep-sea port near Susah through the country's first public-private partnership (PPP).

The Guidry Group was first permitted by Libya’s Ministry of Transport to conduct a study of the project in 2012. A tender for the project was conducted in 2015, and a design-build-operate-transfer (DBOT) contract was awarded to the company. The Guidry Group published its proposals for the port development in July 2018.

The support of East and West authorities is a product of months of discussions, according to the company, and a historic success given the legacy of division between the two.

The Guidry Group intends to develop the Susah site into one of the most highly-automated and largest deep-sea ports in North Africa, a major international trans-shipment container hub ideally placed to serve users of the Suez Canal.

The port will be developed in three phases, with operations scheduled to commence in 2022. The Guidry Group projects that the port will generate approximately US$60 million in revenues from 2022, and that this will double by the year 2040. These estimates are based on the port being able to handle around half a million Twenty Equivalent Units (TEUs) in the first year of operations, which will be Phase 1 of the project, estimated to cost US$200 million.

The port's capacity will increase an anticipated three-fold within 25 years, through Phases 2 and 3, which will require investment of approximately US$1.4 billion.

The Seaport Authority, the public body that manages all the ports in the East and the West, will coordinate the delivery of the project.