Dalian is a major city and seaport in the south of Liaoning province in China. It is the southernmost city of Northeast China and China’s northernmost warm water port, at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula in the Yellow Sea.

Dalian is the province’s second largest city and has sub-provincial administrative status. Only the provincial capital, Shenyang, is larger. The Shandong peninsula lies southwest across the Bohai Sea. Korea lies across the Yellow Sea to the east. Dalian is 470 kilometres southeast of Beijing and 80 nautical miles north-northeast, across the Yellow Sea, from the Port of Yantai. Dalian has an ice-free natural deep-water harbour. It occupies an important strategic position at the entrance to the Gulf of Chihli, commanding maritime access to the Port Tianjin. At present, over 3.5 million people live in Dalian.

A busy industrial city, Dalian is the biggest shipping centre in China, and it supports a large fishing fleet. In addition to its port, Dalian is an important rail terminus with direct access to the nation’s highway network and a major international airport with regular flights to Japan and Korea. Dalian is home to shipbuilders and locomotive manufacturers, and it has a thriving manufacturing sector that produces machines, chemicals, electronics, textiles, and petroleum products. High technology, finance, and services are also growing in importance to the local economy.

Port History

In the 2nd Century BC, Lushun (today’s Dalian) was an important entry port for southern Manchuria. Settled by Chinese colonists of the Han Dynasty in the late 2nd Century BC, the fortified city was also important for military campaigns by the Tang Dynasty in the 7th Century AD and for the Ming Dynasty in the 15th and 16th Centuries.

The Manchus captured Dalian in 1633, and it was the headquarters for coastal defence under the Manchu Qing Dynasty from 1644 until the early 20th Century. In the late 19th Century, it was selected as the base for China’s first modern navy and re-fortified.

During the Sino-Japanese War in the mid 1890s, Dalian was captured by the Japanese and leased to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki. However, Western powers intervened, and Dalian was returned to China. Russia needed an icefree Pacific port, and in 1897, they occupied the Liaodong Peninsula after Germany took the southern side of Shandong Peninsula.

In 1898, Russia obtained a lease for the Liaodong Peninsula and permission to build a railroad to connect with the Chinese Eastern Railway and the Trans- Siberian Railroad. The Russians focused on strengthening the naval base as the headquarters for their Pacific fleet at Lushun (known in the West as Port Arthur).

In 1899, Russia set up the free Port Arthur (later Dalian) with capacity to handle 5.2 million tons of cargo per year. They dredged the harbour and built wharves, piers, and breakwaters and laid out a large city in Western style. In 1902, the Port Authority was established under the mayor. By 1903, the Port of Dalian contained three terminals and warehouses. Dalian was an important target of the Japanese during the 1904-05 Russo- Japanese War. The Japanese army occupied Dalian in 1904, forcing the Russians to withdraw. The 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth formally transferred the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan. It became Japan’s military and administrative headquarters for the region, and the Japanese strengthened the naval base, using it for operations in Manchuria and northern China.

The Japanese completed the development of the city and port that the Russians had begun. They renamed the port Dairen and developed a modern city with an impressive modern port. It was soon the second busiest port in China with trade volume exceeded only by Shanghai. In 1912, the volume of Darien’s foreign trade made it the biggest trading port in China’s northeast.

The Japanese made Darien an important industrial centre with a busy chemical industry and a growing cotton-textile production industry. Already a headquarters for the South Manchurian Railway, the Japanese added large railway workshops that supplied locomotives, rolling stock, and equipment for rail lines throughout the region and in Korea.

During the 1930s, the completion of the Dairen Machinery Company in the Port of Dalian established the machinebuilding industry, and the ship-building industry grew. In 1934, cargo volumes moving through the Port reached ten million tons, including 7.7 million tons of exports. In 1939, the Japanese completed the Port’s Terminal Four. By 1941, the Port was producing 8,000 ton ocean-going vessels.

The 1945 Yalta Conference assumed that the Dalian and the Liaodong territory would be returned to Russia after World War II. That year, China and the Soviet Union agreed to share Dalian for 30 years with the Soviet Union responsible for defending the port. Soviet occupation of the Liaodong Peninsula resulted in less damage to Dalian than to many other cities in Manchuria. In 1954, stevedores from Dalian attended China’s National People’s Congress.

In 1972, the first container ships arrived at Dalian, establishing Mainland China’s first ocean-going container routes. In 1973, cargo volumes reached 21.5 million tons. Foreign trade in the Port exceeded domestic trade for the first time in 1975. In 1976, China’s first 100,000 ton deep-water wharf was opened at Dalian. The old Port underwent a complete renovation in 1978. In 1981, the several communities were merged, and the city of

Dalian became the Zhongshan District. Dalian Port Corporation was created in 1982, and the Port won the coveted Hong Kong Annual National Quality Management Award in 1984. That year, Dalian hit a new record volume of 40 million tons of cargo. Also in 1984, Dalian was made one of China’s few open cities, inviting foreign investment and creating further development.

In 1985, Dalian established friendship relations with Hong Kong, Kitakyushu in Japan, Houston in the United States, and Vancouver in Canada. Dalian’s Grocery Terminal, with capacity for 960,000 tons of cargo, was completed. Dalian won the National Business Management Excellence Award in 1989. The same year, open access container liner routes were established with the United States and Canada. Cargo throughput topped 50 million tons in 1989.

In 1992, the Port opened new passenger and roll-on/roll-off berths, bringing passenger capacity to 1.25 million and capacity for vehicles to 100,000. By 1994, Dalian was handling cargo volumes over 60 million tons. The last Russian forces left Dalian in 1995, and the Chinese immediately made it an important naval base.

The 1990s brought new development, new goals, and new recognition to Dalian. In 1996, the Assembly established the goal of making Dalian a multi-purpose, allround modern international port and provided the labour and materials needed to implement the program. Construction began for the “343 initiative.”

By 1997, Dalian’s cargo throughput reached over 70 million tons. In 1999, Dalian’s Container Terminal Company Limited received the award in Hong Kong, recognizing it as Asia’s best container terminal operator. Later that year, China’s shipping magazine recognized the container port’s outstanding operating efficiency, and Dalian was recognized by “Maritime Asia” for its outstanding container terminals. Cargo throughput in the Port exceeded 85 million tons in 1999.

In 2000, the Dalian’s workers were recognized as “National Model Workers,” and the Port’s cargo throughput topped 90 million tons. Ten new berths were constructed, including five container berths with annual capacity for 1.5 million TEUs of containerized cargo, four bulk berths with annual capacity for 4.9 million tons of cargo, and a grain berth with annual capacity for 4.5 million tons. In 2006, China’s National Tourism Administration named Dalian a “national industrial tourism demonstration site.”

The Dalian Port Group was created to develop and manage the Port, support regional development, promote resource integration across Liaoning’s coastal ports, and to assure Dalian’s competitive international position. With the English initials “PDA,” the Dalian Port Group was created in late 2005 and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2006 and 2010. It was the first port company in China to be listed on both the Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges. The PDA is the largest comprehensive port operator in Northeast China. Its main businesses include the following terminals and their related logistics services:-

oil and liquefied chemicals terminal
container terminal
automobile terminal
ore terminal
general cargo
terminal bulk grain
terminal passenger and ro-ro terminal
port value-added services

Dalian includes several different port areas, Daliangang, Dalianwan, Nianyuwan, Xianglujiao, Ganjinzi, Si’ergou, Heizuizi, and Dayaowan. The state-owned Dalian Port Corporation Limited owns and manages the Port of Dalian.

In March 2012, the China Daily reported that the Port was the 19th busiest container port in the world. Container throughput in the Port grew by 15% in 2010 and by 21.1% in 2011. In 2011, the Port reached an all-time high of 10 million TEUs of containerized cargo.

The Port of Dalian covers 85.5 acres (346 square kilometres) of water surface and 3,700 acres (15 square kilometres) of land area. The Port is equipped with 160 kilometres (258 miles) of railway, 74 acres (300,000 square metres) of warehouses, almost 445 million acres (1.8 million square kilometres) of stacking yards, and more than 1,000 pieces of equipment and machinery for loading/unloading cargo.

The Port contains a total of 80 berths (38 of which are deep-water berths that can accommodate vessels greater than 10,000 DWT) handling containers, crude oil, petroleum products, grain, bulk ores, coal, and roll-on/roll-off cargoes. The Port is home to Northeast China’s biggest crude oil dock with capacity to handle 80 million tons per year.

Located in Dalian’s Dayao Bay port area, Dayaowan is the international deepwater hub port operation. It contains economic and technological development zones, export processing zones, and bonded zones and is located adjacent to Dalian’s logistics park. Being a critical centre for collection and distribution of cargoes, Dayaowan is located with convenient access to railways and highways.

Container terminals

The Port’s Container Terminals handle the vast majority of foreign trade that moves through Northeast China. It can accommodate container ships with capacity for 14,100 TEUs. The Port is Northeast China’s most important container port. It operates 85 domestic and international container routes and is responsible for over 90% of trans-shipments of foreign trade containers.

The Dalian Container Terminal (DCT) is a joint venture between the Port of Dalian and PSA. DCT has capacity to handle 5 million TEUs of containerized cargo per year and has long been recognized as one of the best container terminals in Asia. The state-of-the-art Dalian Port Container Terminal Company (DPCM) Limited is a global container terminal. Maersk Group has six container berths with total annual capacity for three million TEUs. A joint venture between Dagang China Shipping Terminal, Nippon Yusen joint investment and China Shipping Terminals, the Dalian International Container Terminal Company Limited (DICT) is located on Dayao Bay.

The Dalian Dagang China Shipping Container Terminal Company Limited DDCT.CS is a joint venture between the Dalian Port Group, the DCT, China Shipping Group, and PSA. Primarily serving domestic container trade, the DDCT.CS is connected to three regional transportation systems, the Pearl River, Yangtze River, and Bohai Bay.

The Port’s DCT, DPCM, and DICT have a total of 13 berths with alongside depths from 9.8 to 16 metres (32.2 to 52.5 feet) and capacity to handle mover five million TEUs per year. Six of these berths can accommodate 10,000 TEU ships. The Port of Dalian’s DCT has a 740,000 square metre (183 acre) yard with capacity for storage of up to 49,000 TEU. The DPCM has a 255,000 square metre (63 acre) yard with capacity to store 25,000 TEUs. The Port’s DICT has capacity to store 50,000 TEUs.

Bulk and breakbulk terminals

The Port of Dalian has a high-efficiency wharf for loading/unloading up to 40,000 ton bulk ore ships. The General Cargo Terminal in the Port is a major trans-shipment centre for bulk cargoes in Northeast china. The Port’s wharf handling bulk grains is one of Northeast China’s most competitive transit centres for distribution of foodstuffs.

The Port has always dealt with bulk and general cargoes, and these cargoes are handled in six port areas. The Port’s cargo terminal covers land area of four square kilometres (988 acres). The cargo terminal 28 has annual capacity to handle as much as 20 million tons of cargo. The depot covers 1.37 million square metres (over 338 acres) including warehouse space of 300,000 square metres (74 acres).

The cargo terminal has more than 300 pieces of equipment and machinery that includes 45-ton and 40-ton gantry cranes, a 50-ton tire crane, and state-ofthe- art handling machinery and equipment.

The collection and distribution functions of the cargo terminal are served by the port railway which is connected to the major regional rail lines. More than 80% of the cargo is transported by rail.

The Bulk Grain Terminal is one of six centres developed by the Dalian Port Group as a major distribution centre for import and export of grains for Northeast China and Inner Mongolia. While grain trans-shipments are its major business, the terminal also handles groceries, cement, steel, and coal.

The Ganjingzi port area is adjacent to the central grain reserves in the Port of Dalian Depot, and it has dedicated rail service with the Ganjingzi railway. The Ganjingzi area of the Port has eight berths with total length of 1,664 metres (5,500 feet) and alongside depths from 14.6 to 5.5 metres (47.9 to 18 feet).

Three multi-purpose berths in the Ganjingzi port area are a total of 851 metres (2,800 feet) long with alongside depths of 14.6 and 12.1 metres (47.9 and 39.7 feet). These three berths have capacity for 7.2 million tons of bulk grains, groceries, and general cargoes. The remaining berths handle coal, bulk grains, cement, and groceries. The Ganjingzi port area in the Port of Dalian also contains six yards with total capacity for almost 1.5 million tons of cargo.

The Dalian Port Ore Terminal Company is located on the Dagushan Peninsula. It is home to dedicated ore loading/unloading berths with alongside depth of 23 metres (75.5 feet). The 30 million- ton capacity ore wharf is equipped with a 64 ton grab ship unloader that can move 2,500 tons per hour. The Ore Terminal yard covers 372,000 square metres (almost 92 acres) and has capacity for stockpiling five million tons of ore. The total capacity of the terminal is 38 million tons per year.

Oil/Liquid terminals

The Port is home to Asia’s most modern bulk liquid chemical terminals. Dalian’s oil terminal companies handle crude oil, refined oil, and liquid chemicals. Terminal functions include loading/unloading, warehousing, and distribution of products by pipeline, highway, and rail.

The Dalian Harbour Liquid Tank Terminal Company Limited is a joint venture between Norway’s Oder Phil Corporation and the Dalian Port Group. Its primary cargoes are liquid chemical products.

The oil terminal in the Port has total capacity for over four million cubic metres (25.1 million US barrels) of liquid cargoes. Its 35 crude oil storage tanks have total capacity for 3.5 million cubic metres (22 million US barrels). Thirty-nine refined oil storage tanks can handle 368,000 cubic metres (2.3 million US barrels). The Port’s 51 liquid chemical storage tanks have capacity for 119,700 cubic metres (753,000 US barrels).

The oil terminal has 19 oil/liquefied chemicals berths, including two 300,000dwt crude oil berths, one of which can accommodate 450,000dwt crude oil vessels. The handling capacity of the oil terminal is over 78 million tons.

Ro-Ro terminals

Dalian’s auto terminal has roll-on/roll-off capacity for almost 500,000 vehicles per year. It handles over 90% of Northeast China’s market share. The Automobile Terminal Company Limited was incorporated in 2004 as a joint venture between the Dalian Port Group, COSCO Pacific Company Limited, and Nippon Yusen Kaisha Company Limited. In 2007, the Dalian Port Group transferred its shares to the Dalian Port Corporation.

The automobile terminal is one of the largest designated automobile terminals in China. The terminal operates two designated automobile berths and 230,000 square metres of stacking yard with an annual handling capacity of 496,700 vehicles. The automobile terminal can accommodate the largest Ro-Ro vessels in the world.

Dalian port is one of the four automobile ports approved by the Chinese government to provide automobile import business. Benefitting from the rapid growth of automobile production and sales in China and the revitalization of the automobile manufacturing base in the north eastern Provinces of China, the Group’s automobile terminal business has been growing rapidly. With completion of Phase II of the terminal, the automobile wharf will have a total length of 640 metres (almost 2,100 feet), a total of 470,000 square metres (116 acres) of yards, and total capacity to handle one million vehicles.

Cruise and Ferry terminals

Located at the northern end of Golden Waterway in Bohai Bay, the Port’s Ferry Terminal moves over 600 million people each year and over 100 million roll-on/rolloff vehicles. Dalian offers the biggest offshore Ferry Terminal in China. Over the years, it has worked hard to promote domestic and international cruise traffic. The Ferry Terminal is served by nine berths with total length of 1,441 metres (4,727 feet) and alongside depths from 8.48 to 10 metres (27.8 to 32.8 feet).

Added services

The Port also provides services such as tugging, tallying, IT, port logistics, construction management and supervision services, and power supply. The Port has one of the largest tugboat fleets in China.