Tanjung Priok super port - WorldCargo News Online

PORT DEVELOPMENT
Rijeka gears itself up
The past two years have been
ones of rejuvenation at Croatia’s
largest port, Rijeka, and nowhere
has this been better illustrated
than at the port’s container terminal
where more than €30M
will have been spent on expansion
and modernisation programmes
by the end of this year.
The terminal is now poised to
handle a much larger share of the
growing liner traffic moving in
Croatia’s port of Rijeka is readying
itself to handle a bigger slice of the
growing liner trade between Asia
and central/eastern Europe
and out of the northern Adriatic
Sea, especially to and from Asia,
providing improvements are carried
out to Croatia’s rail network,
VERSTEGEN
GRAB
MORE
MORE
GRAB
Super Post panamax Portainer cranes at PSA Sines, Portugal
something the government has
promised to do.
The transformation started in
April 2011 when Manila-headquartered
ICTSI (51%) and Luka
Rijeka, the operating arm of the
Port Authority of Rijeka (49%),
gained management control of
Bradjica Container Terminal.
The 30-year operating and investment
concession commits
the parties to investing €65M
over this period.
Immediately, ICTSI and Luka
Rijeka put in place a capital expenditure
programme, initially
targeted at raising productivity
and efficiency levels, but with the
goal of expanding the terminal
and gearing it up to process bigger
ships. The business plan was
also focused on enhancing Rijeka’s
regional role for the Balkans,
eastern and central Europe
– a sector of the business mainly
handled by Luka Koper (Slovenia)
and the Italian port of Trieste.
Creating a gateway
Highly indicative of this whole
process was the decision to rename
and rebrand the facility
as the Adriatic Gate Container
Terminal (AGCT). “We have a
dream here and that is to help
develop Rijeka as the new gateway
for south and central Europe,”
CEO Phillip Marsham
told WorldCargo News. “This is
fast becoming a reality and it
makes absolute sense as there is a
six-day difference between calling
here and calling at Benelux
and/or German ports.”
He was speaking after a recent
reception at the terminal to
commemorate the completion of
328m of new quay line, with a
depth alongside of 14.2m, and delivery
of €24M of new handling
equipment. This included the
facility’s first post-panamax STS
gantry cranes, featuring a 50m
outreach, capable of handling
ships loaded with 18 rows across
the weather deck. Equipped
with RAM twin-lift spreaders,
AGCT’s CEO Phillip Marsham
AGCT recently took delivery of €24M of new equipment including two
ZPMC post-panamax STS gantry cranes and six RTGs
the ZPMC cranes can lift 51t.
In addition, the May delivery
included two 19.5m-span RMGs
for AGCT’s expanded on-dock
rail yard, with each 41t-capacity
gantry able to work across four
loading/discharge tracks. ZPMC
also delivered six RTGs, each
able to span across seven container
rows plus the truck lane and
with a lift height of one-overfive
and SWL of 41t.
“This new equipment, firmly
puts Rijeka on the map of
the northern Adriatic region,”
stressed Marsham. “We now have
a couple of months in which
to commission the equipment
and the new terminal should
be fully operational in July. This
coincides with Croatia joining
the European Union (EU) and
that means seamless borders with
our northern neighbours, which
will also encourage trade. We are
happy that everything is coming
together. This is indeed a new
chapter for the port of Rijeka.”
For the remainder of the year,
AGCT management will focus
on expanding and improving
the rail transfer facility, including
laying tracks for the RMGs. The
gate will also be relocated away
from the city and closer to the
main motorway and the inland
container depot at Skrljevo.
With all customs activities
also due to be conducted on site,
rather than split between the terminal
and a location elsewhere,
Marsham expects truck turnaround
times to improve further
and for this to be another strong
selling point for AGCT.
Enticing the carriers
He is confident that the new
deep draught berth at AGCT will
provide Rijeka with much better
operating flexibility and lead
to some ocean carriers revamping
their north Adriatic service
networks by placing Rijeka as
the first port of call and, consequently,
discharging more cargo.
He explained: “Currently
Maersk Line/CMA CGM, for
instance, call at Trieste and Luka
Koper first because of our sea
and air draught [under the crane]
limitations, but then have to return
to Trieste for empties. Our
new terminal can change this
and save them voyage time and
costs.”
The AGCT chief also alluded
to Luka Koper’s yard and rail capacity
as filling up and its operating
efficiency as being in decline.
It handled more than 600,000
TEU in 2012.
“With our new terminal and
handling equipment, expanded
yard, increased rail capacity and
closer distance to the Hungarian
border, plus Croatia’s admission
to the EU, we can offer shipping
lines a clear first port of call
advantage and their customers
faster transit times to key markets,
such as Budapest. We can
save the shipping lines a day on
their voyages.”
He also believes AGCT now
has the potential to act as a subregional
hub for northern Italy
(Ancona-Venice) and for smaller
eastern Adriatic ports in the
Split-Durres (Albania) range.
Critical to the success of the
expanded terminal will be improvements
to the nation’s rail
network where capacity and average
train speeds need to be improved.
Already, the government
has made progress with a unified
power system, allowing non-stop
train services to Budapest. Since
November, AGCT has been dispatching
regular services to Serbia
and Budapest, with the latter
destination reached in 48 hours.
Longer-term, Marsham sees
great opportunities in developing
a so-called “Baltic-Adriatic
freight corridor” and linking up
with ICTSI’s port operations at
the Baltic Container Terminal in
Gdynia, Poland.
Rail improvements
Within the port, AGCT is set to
double its intermodal rail capacity,
raising the yard’s capacity to
360,000 TEU a year. Four 240m
tracks will be used for loading/
discharge activities. Ultimately,
these will be extended to 318m
in length so that standard size
European block trains can be run.
“After this year, AGCT will
move into an operational phase
and upgrades at the site will then
become volume related,” explained
Marsham.
He is confident that the declines
in cargo that have taken
place at AGCT in recent years – in
2012 126,680TEU was handled
compared with 168,779 TEU in
2008 – can be stemmed. “Our
projections are for box traffic to
double by 2015 when we expect
to be handling 245,000 TEU,”
Marsham told WorldCargo News.
The expansion of AGCT is
just one part of the port authority’s
own gateway aspirations for
Rijeka. It is determined to add
a second container terminal and
has already secured €70M in
World Bank funding to build the
first 400m of a planned 680m of
quay at the new facility. It will
have a draught alongside of up
to 20m.
“We hope to have the first
phase of this project completed
in late 2016 or Q1 2017,” explained
Vlado Mezak, director
of Rijeka Port Authority. “The
schedule for the remaining 280m
of wharf will be determined by
whether public/private or EU
funding is used, but I can confirm
that tender documents for
the 30-year operating concession
will be published by the end of
this year. We anticipate that container
handling operations will
commence during 2018.”
He rejected claims that the
new terminal could lead to an
oversupply of capacity in Rijeka,
arguing that in five years’ time
AGCT’s utilisation levels would
be approaching 60% of its design
throughput. “It is important we
act ahead of the demand curve to
ensure the port’s operations are efficient,”
he said. “A throughput capacity
of 1.2M TEU for this port,
given its potential, is not so big.”
The developments at AGCT
and the port of Rijeka look set
to change the nature of container
handling activity and liner shipping
patterns in the Adriatic in
the coming years.
52
May 2013