Tanjung Priok super port - WorldCargo News Online

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PORT DEVELOPMENT
Pictures from Ghent - left: agribulk terminal;
and, right, DFDS Gothenburg service ro-ro
ship in the Mercatordok. ZSP now supports
Ghent’s call for a second and larger sea lock
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Locked together
While the Port of Ghent may be Belgium’s
third largest port, it is still linked
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to Zeeland Seaports by the ship canal.
Every ship that is bound for Terneuzen
or Ghent must navigate the sea lock. Indeed,
the overlap between the two ports
can be confusing. Cargill, for instance, installed
four new maize silos last year at its
plant at Sas van Gent on the ship canal to
receive ocean going shipments, yet this
area falls under ZSP rather than Ghent.
While Ghent has been pushing for a
new sea lock for some time, ZSP now
supports this development as it could
stimulate further development at
Terneuzen. The Westsluis dock is not only
the smallest sea lock in the Hamburg-Le
Havre range, but also the most heavily
used with a utilisation rate in excess of
70%. This eaves little time for regular
maintenance and requires precise traffic
management to reduce congestion.
Agreement of the financing of the
new lock, which will measure 427m x
55m x 16 m sill depth, has now been
agreed, with the port of Ghent already
making provisions for its contribution on
its balance sheet. A two year environmental
impact study (EIS) will now be undertaken,
of which €4M of the total
€7.85M cost will be funded by the EU.
Assuming a favourable EIS, it will be followed
by a 5-year construction period for
a 2020 commissioning date at the latest.
Seine-Nord
The other main infrastructure which involves
the port, the construction of the
Seine-Scheldt (Seine-Nord) canal may be
nearer clarification. The project was signed
off by French President Sarkozy with
completion scheduled for 2017. However,
when the Hollande Administration came
to power in France it decided to audit on
all major infrastructure investments.
This is expected to be completed by
mid-2013 and France will then apply for
a larger EU subsidy. If this is secured, the
canal, which will be able to handle barges
up to 4500dwt, should be commissioned
by 2019, linking the Paris basin with the
Flemish seaports.
Ghent is cautious in the short term.
Having topped its all time record of 50
Mt in 2011, it slipped back to 49.5 Mt
last year, although a drop of 1.2% cannot
be considered too bad given the performance
of nearby ports. This figure includes
both seaborne and inland waterway traffic,
which last year increased 1.3% to 23.2
Mt. Marine trade fell 3.2% to 26.3 Mt.
The drop in cargo is, however, not reflected
in the port’s financial performance.
Last year the port’s revenues increased
from €30.4M to a record €31M, generating
€8M profit. Of its total revenue, some
35% was attributed to lease payments,
while 34% was earned through ship dues.
One growth area is containers, with
Ghent Container Terminals, operated by
Multilink,, recording a growth of 9% last
year to 88,160 TEU from the 2011
throughput of 80,100 TEU. In terms of
tonnage, growth is even better at 13.5%
with 618,880t handled. Terminal facilities
are modest with shoreside handling
carried out by a harbour mobile crane.
Slow starter
The port admits that 2013 “got off to a
shaky start,” with throughput dropping
3.6% to 11.6 Mt compared to the correspondingly
period last year. However, the
port also noted a year ago that “total cargo
traffic had a poor start to 2012.” In the
first quarter this year, a total of 6 Mt of
seaborne traffic was handled, a drop of
almost 4% compared with 1Q/2012.
As last year, the port recorded a
monthly average of 2 Mt for seaborne
cargoes in the first three months, although
January saw a decrease, February an increase,
but there was a further decrease in
the total volume of cargo traffic in March.
Inland barge volumes, at 5.6 Mt were
down 3.3% to 200,000t. ❏
44
May 2013