By Tom Stieghorst

Carnival Corp. and the port of Barcelona reached an agreement on the construction of a new $27 million cruise terminal that will handle post-Panamax sized ships.

The terminal will be about 107,000 square feet, large enough to accommodate 4,500 people. It is expected to open in 2016.

Carnival already operates a terminal at the port, which will be expanded by about 14,000 square feet. Both terminals are on the Adossat Wharf.

Carnival will invest the $27 million and run the terminal as a concession. The port will invest about $2.7 million on roads and other infrastructure and about $2 million on signage.

Barcelona is the fourth-busiest cruise port in the world, with an estimated passenger volume of 2.6 million passengers this year.

Post-Panamax ships

Post-Panamax or over-Panamax denote ships larger than Panamax that do not fit in the canal, such as supertankers and the largest modern container ships. The “largest oil tanker in the world”—whichever ship held the title at the time—has not been able to transit the Panama Canal at least since the Idemitsu Maru was launched in the 1960s; it carried about 150,000 deadweight tons. All US Navy aircraft carriers since USS Midway have been in the post-Panamax class