Work will start on the 190-metre “finger quay” in the spring allowing the new quay to become operational in 2015.
The project will involve dredging 740,000 cubic metres of material to provide the berth and enable a new steel-piled quay wall to be built.
Once complete, the site will then be back filled for 90m and new large cranes built.
The extension to the £300m berths 8 and 9, completed two years ago, will allow the port to berth two 18,000-box container ferries side-by-side and increase capacity by 275,000 standard-sized containers a year.
