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SPAIN: PORT DEVELOPMENT
from Valencia when Mediterranean
Shipping Company (MSC)
opens its 350,000 m 2 dedicated
terminal this September
MSC has invested €120M in
the Fangos terminal that is set to
become its major hub in the western
Mediterranean. Despite Barcelona’s
major expansion programme,
the Port of Valencia,
which handles most of Madrid’s
seagoing trade, remains confident
about growth prospects.
“There is open competition. I
believe in the market and I believe
the winner will be the port
that has a strategic location, is able
to provide a strong economic hinterland
and to ensure that there is
no strangulation on efficiency, on
productivity rates and on costs,”
said Rafael Aznar Garrigues, chairman
of the Valencia port authority
(APV).
“Valencia is close to the critical
mass areas of trade,but we will
need to work on rail and road
networks to bring us even closer
to markets.”
The two amigos
Barcelona is Valencia’s greatest
competitor in Spain as the Port of
Algeciras’ hinterland is limited
Hutchison will buy into Tercat if their joint bid for Prat Dock is successful, but
there is stiff competition from Grup TCB and a group led by DP World
economically, argues Aznar
Garrigues. “To ensure further
growth at Valencia. we aim to
develop logistics and technological
platforms for the transfer of
documentation.”
The port’s short sea shipping
prospects, meanwhile, have been
bolstered by a new weekly
intermodal rail-sea link called
MARIS linking Valencia with
Livorno in Italy.APV is continuing
to battle in Brussels to ensure
that the port is included in future
EU TEN rail links.
Not taken off
Unlike Barcelona, Valencia’s
planned logistics zone (ZAL)
aimed at attracting value-added
business has not taken off. Even
so,Aznar Garrigues remains optimistic
about growth prospects for
Valencia.
He points out that the staging
of the Americas Cup in Valencia
in 2007 means that the port has
new sheltered areas for further enlargement.This
means it can look
at new dedicated container terminals
as well as terminals for specialised
trades.The port is aiming
to achieve a throughput of 6.5M
TEU/year by 2015.
Boost from China
Ahead of the opening of MSC’s
Fangos terminal this September,
the prospects of Terminal de
Contenedors de Valencia
(TCV), majority-owned by
Grup TCB, have been boosted
by the increased presence of
China Shipping. In line with the
rise of Far East imports to Europe’s
Mediterranean ports,
Tercat is an important bulk handling operator as well as strong competition for
Grup TCB, Barcelona’s biggest container handler. This picture shows two
Mantsinen 110 RCT hydraulic cranes acquired recently for scrap handling
China Shipping has become
TCV’s leading client.
According to the line’s
agents in Valencia, it increased
container movements at TCV
by 50% last year, moving
170,000 TEU, boosting the
terminal’s overall throughput
by almost 30% to 553,094
TEU.
Exports are growing but
not as quickly as imports,
which account for 60% of
Spanish o/d traffic at TCV.
However, transhipment volumes
have also grown and account
for 25-30% of traffic at
the terminal, said company
spokesman Miguel Ruiz.
China Shipping started calling
at Valencia in 2001 at Marítima
Valenciana, but moved operations
in the same year to TCV.
“Marítima Valenciana said at the
time that it could not provide the
service we required for the
amount of cargo we wanted to
bring, so in 2001 we moved to
TCV,” said Bibiana Martínez, secretary
of China Shipping (Spain)
in Valencia.
“At that time we also had a
Traffic still growing
strongly in Spain
Sustained growth at Spain’s commercial
ports continued in 2005,
with trade rising at an average rate
of 7.4%, well above the country’s
3.4% GDP growth rate last year,
reports the national ports entity,
Puertos del Estado. In total, 440.77
mt of goods moved last year across
Spain’s 46 ports. Container traffic
increased 11.8% to more than
11M TEU.
The Mediterranean ports of
Barcelona, Valencia and Algeciras
account for close to half of all traffic
and two thirds of container
traffic.Traffic at the three ports has
been boosted mostly by the continuing
rise in imports from Far
East Asia and in transhipment demand.
Container transhipment at
Spanish ports rose 11.8% to 5.2M
TEU in 2005, with throughput at
Algeciras rising 8.25% to
3,179,614 TEU. Algeciras is now
Europe’s fifth largest container
port. Container traffic at Valencia
increased 12.33% to 2,409,821
TEU. traffic. At Barcelona the
growth rate was slower at 8.05%,
with traffic rclimbing to 2,070,726
TEU.
Richest of all
Barcelona remains Spain’s wealthiest
port, due the value of cargo
moved in export/import traffic
and its low reliance on transhipment
traffic.The port’s net profit
shot up by 56% to €55.9M
(US$68.9M) last year.The record
results have been attributed to a
33% increase in turnover, as income
rose 11% to €129.7M and
expenditure was cut by 3%. More
than €200M was invested in the
port last year.
Barcelona has been the fastest
growing port in the Mediterranean
in terms of overall traffic levels
according to Josep Oriol, managing
director of Barcelona port
authority. Last year overall
throughput increased 12% to
45Mt, with all categories showing
healthy growth. Barcelona is
also Europe’s leading cruise port
and cruise passenger traffic rose
20% to more than 1.2M. Overall
passenger traffic went up 12% to
close to 2.2M.
Bilbao issue
Bilbao, Spain’s largest Atlantic sea
port, remains in fourth position in
the country’s commercial port
league and container traffic here
topped 500,000 TEU. The University
of the Basque Country in
Spain has identified a real need to
improve freight transport infrastructure
in Bilbao.
Failure to do so could result
in a real bottleneck developing
and prevent future growth of the
Basque region, says the university
in a report that stresses the urgency
of integrating the Bilbao into Europe’s
emerging “sea motorways”
network, as well as upgrading connections
between the port and the
rest of the network through the
establishment of inland distribution
terminals.
However, all initiatives to improve
road haulage provision to
and from the port of Bilbao are
dragged down by the inability of
the Basque government to resolve
the near-monopoly provision of
these services - a thorny issue for
a number of years.
Unless this situation improves,
the overall competitiveness of
the port will be negatively affected,
says the report. The
Basque government is due to
present a framework document
in December explaining how
transport provision will be revamped.
It will be implemented
by the end of 2007.
● The Spanish river port of Seville
is to have a scheduled container
service linking it with the
north of Europe, according to
Manuel Fernández, president of
the port authority. He declined to
reveal the name of either the shipping
line or the proposed frequency.
Once operational, the
service could easily double the
existing throughput of the port in
containers. Seville is currently limited
to serving markets in the Canary
Islands and Morocco. This
traffic increased last year by 4.12%
to 115,670 TEU. ❏
14
April 2006