Port of Bandırma

Bandırma receives dry bulk carriers, general cargo and project cargo ships, tankers carrying liquid cargo, and Ro-Ro vessels. According to statistics from the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, 914 calling vessels were recorded in the Bandırma harbour master’s area in 2025, and the area handled about 5.7 million tonnes of cargo that year.

Port profile

Bandırma is a district of Balıkesir province. The port sits on Bandırma Bay, on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmara, right next to the town center. The main terminal is Çelebi Bandırma Port, operated by Çelebi Bandırma Uluslararası Limanı İşletmeciliği A.Ş. According to TÜRKLİM records, it handles:

• dry bulk and general cargo,
• liquid bulk,
• project cargo,
• Ro-Ro vessels and vehicles.

The harbour master’s area also includes the Bandırma port of Bagfaş, a fertilizer producer. Bandırma is therefore not tied to a single cargo type: a bulk carrier, a tanker and a Ro-Ro vessel can all be in the bay in the same week.

Vessel traffic and anchorages

The Bandırma Regional Harbour Master defines three anchorages in the bay:

• Anchorage No. 1: ships not carrying dangerous goods, and naval vessels. It extends northeast from just off the port.
• Anchorage No. 2: ships carrying dangerous goods, ships placed in quarantine and ships gas-freeing.
• Anchorage No. 3: where all ships anchor in adverse weather. It lies in the more open part of the bay, northeast of the port.

The pilot boarding points are north and northwest of the port. A ship waiting to load or discharge stays at anchor, and that wait is a natural window for supplies, minor repairs and survey work.

Which service companies find work at Bandırma?

• Surveyors: draft surveys, hold inspections and cargo damage surveys for bulk cargo, plus loading and lashing checks for project cargo. See marine surveyors.
• Ship chandlers: provisions and cabin stores delivered to ships waiting at anchor. See ship chandlers.
• Ship agents: every tramp ship appoints an agent for port and cargo formalities.
• Technical service and spare parts firms: maintenance and parts deliveries that can be done while the ship waits at anchor.

How does VesselCall monitor Bandırma?

For Outreach you define a range for Bandırma: a radius in nautical miles (nm) measured from the port center. We suggest 10 nm. That circle covers the port, the pilot boarding points and all three anchorages. Anchorage No. 3, where ships gather in bad weather, sits in the open part of the bay, so a smaller range could leave it out.

For each cargo ship, tanker or passenger ship inside the range, VesselCall finds the ship manager through the IMO number and translates your introduction e-mail into the recipient company’s language. A Turkish back-translation preview lets you check the meaning, and the e-mail goes out from your own domain, so replies land in your inbox.

The Data package records port calls at Bandırma independently of e-mail sending: arrival, departure, length of stay, at anchor or at berth. Period reports show how long bulk carriers stay, which flags dominate and which managers call most often. Records build up from the day monitoring starts.