İzmit Bay ports

İzmit Bay receives tankers, chemical tankers, Ro-Ro vessels carrying vehicles, container ships and dry bulk carriers. According to statistics from the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, 9,206 calling vessels were recorded in the Kocaeli harbour master’s area in 2025, the highest number of any harbour master’s area in Türkiye that year.

Port area profile

İzmit Bay lies at the eastern end of the Sea of Marmara, along the coast of Kocaeli. It is not a single port but a port area of many terminals lined up along the bay. Based on TÜRKLİM records and official facility lists, the main terminals group as follows:

• Dilovası (west): Yılport Gebze (containers and liquid cargo), Beldeport (containers and vehicles), Poliport (dry and liquid bulk) and liquid bulk terminals.
• Körfez district (Hereke, Yarımca): the Diler bulk pier, DP World Evyap (containers), the Port Yarımca Ro-Ro Terminal and the Tüpraş İzmit refinery port.
• Derince: Safiport Derince.
• Başiskele and Gölcük (south shore): dry and liquid bulk terminals such as Limaş, and the Ford Otosan pier at Yeniköy.

According to the Ministry’s 2025 figures, the Kocaeli harbour master’s area handled 83.9 million tonnes of cargo, second only to Aliağa. The Ro-Ro statistics show sailings from Kocaeli to Koper, Valencia, Barcelona, Antwerp and Piraeus.

Vessel traffic and anchorages

Traffic in the bay follows the industry on its shores: tankers for the refinery and liquid bulk terminals, Ro-Ro vessels for the vehicle terminals, container ships, and dry bulk carriers for industrial piers such as the steel plant. According to the annex to the Ports Regulation, the area of the Kocaeli Regional Harbour Master has these anchorages:

• İzmit, Hereke and Eskihisar anchorages: ships not carrying dangerous goods. The Eskihisar anchorage lies outside the bay’s western entrance, off Darıca.
• Yarımca anchorage: ships carrying dangerous goods, and quarantine.
• Fuel barge anchorage: off Hereke, reserved for fuel barges.

The pilot boarding point is on the western approach to the bay. A ship waiting for a berth stays at anchor in these areas.

Which service companies find work in İzmit Bay?

• Bunker and lubricant suppliers: the concentration of tankers in the bay is a natural customer base for fuel and lubricating oil, and a separate anchorage is designated for fuel barges. See bunker and lubricants.
• Technical service and spare parts firms: pump and valve work on tankers, ramp and deck equipment on Ro-Ro vessels. See marine technical services.
• Surveyors: quantity and tank surveys for liquid cargo, damage surveys for vehicle shipments.
• Ship chandlers and agents: every ship calling at one of the bay’s terminals is a separate opportunity for provisions and port formalities.

How does VesselCall monitor İzmit Bay?

VesselCall treats the bay as one monitored area. In Outreach, your range is a radius in nautical miles (nm) measured from the middle of the bay. We suggest 14 nm. That circle covers every terminal and anchorage in the bay, from the Eskihisar anchorage and the pilot boarding point in the west to the İzmit anchorage in the east, and it also reaches the Yalova shore to the south. A larger circle starts to include traffic off Tuzla.

When a cargo ship, tanker or passenger ship enters the circle, VesselCall uses its IMO number to look up the company roles in international ship registers (Equasis). Recipient priority is the ship manager or commercial manager, then the ISM manager, then the registered owner. The e-mail goes out from your own domain, so replies land in your inbox.

The Data package records port calls in the bay independently of e-mail sending: arrival, departure, length of stay, at anchor or at berth. You can run period reports by sub-type, such as product tanker, chemical tanker or Ro-Ro, and export the list to CSV or Excel. Records build up from the day monitoring starts.