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New partnership between ports of Antwerp and Guangzhou

The Port of Antwerp said the twinning agreement also dovetails perfectly with the ‘One Belt One Road’ philosophy announced by China in 2013 which aims to improve connections between the main Chinese industrial cities and trade centres elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Antwerp, the second-largest port in Europe, and Guangzhou, number 8 in the world, are to collaborate more closely under a twinning agreement signed on December 10 in the Chinese port city.

The two cities had already had a close relationship as under an agreement signed in 2010 between Guangzhou and the Port of Antwerp training centre APEC, various groups of shipping professionals from the Guangzhou port  have attended tailor-made courses at APEC. The twinning agreement will take the relationship between the ports to a new level and, among other things, include commercial collaboration.

For instance, there are currently two shipping services between North-West Europe and China calling at Guangzhou and Antwerp. “By developing a joint marketing approach the respective port authorities aim to get both ports included in several more loops,” the Port of Antwerp said in a press release.

Also, in collaboration with APEC and three other partners, a joint training institute under the name of Guangzhou-Antwerp Port Training & Consultancy Co. Ltd will be set up to offer courses in port operations for professionals from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Other action points in the twinning agreement include the exchange of information on port development and best practices for sustainable enterprise in a port environment.

The Port of Antwerp said the twinning agreement also dovetails perfectly with the ‘One Belt One Road’ philosophy announced by China in 2013 which aims to improve connections between the main Chinese industrial cities and trade centres elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

It also said there are strong similarities between the ports of Antwerp and Guangzhou, both of which are located quite a long distance inland and multifunctional ports with excellent trimodal connections with a rich hinterland.

With an annual freight volume of 510 million tons including 16.63 million TEU, Guangzhou is one of the main container ports in China, acting mainly for transshipment of fuel stuffs, raw materials and commercial goods.

Image of Guangzhou skyline by jo.sau (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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The Belgian port of Antwerp is headed for a record year

Antwerp Port Authority reports steady growth in the volume of container freight (up 8.0% in TEU and 5.4% in tonnage) and of liquid bulk (up 7.9%).

The port of Antwerp is on track to close 2015 with a total volume of 200 million tons of freight handled after hitting 156.5 million tons in the first nine months of this year, up 5.5% on the same period last year.

In a press release, the Antwerp Port Authority also said there has also been steady growth in the volume of container freight (up 8.0% in TEU and 5.4% in tonnage) and of liquid bulk (up 7.9%).

source: Port of Antwerp

Containers and breakbulk

Expressed in TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, i.e. standard containers) the port’s container volume was 7.26 million TEU for January-September, 8.0% above that for the same months last year. In terms of tonnage the volume came to 85,478,483 tons (up 5.4%).

It said that despite declining volumes on trading routes to and from the Far East, in Asian trade the port managed to close the first nine months of 2015 with growth of 6.2%.

In conventional breakbulk, the port had handled 7.3 million tons by the end of September. This was a 1.8% drop in volume and something the authority said was due to “the increasing containerisation of fruit and the consequent fall in conventional handling.”

source: Port of Antwerp

Other key figures:

  • Ro/ro volume: up 2.5% to 3.46 million tons
  • Iron & steel volume: up 2.4% to 4.98 million tons
  • No. of cars handled: down 9.7% to 825,312 vehicles​
     
  • Liquid bulk volume: up 7.9% to 49.8 million tons
  • Oil derivatives: up 4.6% to 35.3 million tons
  • Chemicals: up 23.7% to 10.7 million tons
     
  • Dry bulk: up 2.4% to 10.5 million tons
  • Sand and gravel: up 27.7% to 1.26 million tons
  • Coal: up 12.8% to 1.33 million tons

Seagoing ships

A total of 10,786 seagoing ships have called at the port of Antwerp in the last nine months, 2.5% more than in the same period last year. The gross tonnage rose 7.7% to 271 million GT.

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Hamburg Süd: strong commitment to cargo quality

Cargo experts examine fruit quality after opening a test container equipped with the XtendFRESH system: Michaela Steineker, Thies Claussen & José Ortiz from Eurofins.

Hamburg Süd, a traditional North-South carrier, offers services in most of the world’s key reefer trades. With over 90 years of experience in the transportation of perishable cargo, Hamburg Süd ranks among the top five reefer container carriers worldwide. “We have grown close with the subject of refrigerated cargo in virtually all areas, especially in the Southern Hemisphere where we have our specialists,” says Michaela Steineker, head of Hamburg Süd’s Global Reefer Competence Team. “Where reefer containers are concerned, we transport about 98 per cent food.” Fresh and frozen products are transported, like fruit and vegetables, meat and fish. Bananas currently offer the greatest potential for growth as they are increasingly transported in containers instead of reefer vessels. Hamburg Süd has recently introduced a new service for banana transportation to Europe from Puerto Moin in Costa Rica instead of Cartagena, Colombia. The first port of call in Europe is the Spanish Marin followed by Antwerp, a traditional banana port.

Innovations maintaining quality

Innovations are important at Hamburg Süd, but always with a keen eye on product quality. “We are a high quality reefer carrier dedicated to the cargo. We want to follow new technologies for the best products, but we do not blindly adopt any new technology. We make sure there is extensive testing so no cargo problems arise,” says Michaela Steineker, who has a post-graduate degree in Food Chemistry. One of the projects in the testing phase is ‘Enhanced Reefer Monitoring’. This is a system that monitors the reefer container in real time via mobile data communication. At the same time, the container can be accessed when needed at any time to take corrective action in the box’s operations. Another new technology in co-development with the container manufacturer Carrier is XtendFRESH, a controlled atmosphere technology that is particularly suitable for avocados and bananas. The oxygen content in the container is reduced and the amount of CO2 increased. At the same time, the system removes ethylene, the ripening gas. The XtendFRESH system is a solution integrated into the cooling unit. Until now, so-called ethylene scrubbers were installed in the container. “They would only keep for one journey and then had to be renewed. That involves costs and is laborious in handling,” says Michaela Steineker.

This article originally appeared in the July-August 2015 edition, number 138, of Eurofresh Distribution magazine. Read it here: https://www.eurofresh-distribution.com/magazine/138-2015-julaug

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Linking the Mediterranean with Northern America

In February 2015, the Grimaldi Group shipping company launched a new direct maritime service between Civitavecchia and the North American Ports of Baltimore and Halifax for the transport of cars and other rolling cargo.

The Grimaldi Group shipping company began 2015 with big news: as of February it launched a new direct maritime service between Civitavecchia and the North American Ports of Baltimore and Halifax for the transport of cars and other rolling cargo. The new link is the first direct and regular service between the Mediterranean and North America for the ro-ro carrier sector.

And in Jamuary, Grimaldi had also strengthened the connection between Savona and Barcelona that has become a daily service thanks to deployment of the M/V Ro/Pax “Florencia” that has been added to the 4 “Eurocargo” units which already serve the line.

From 6th July, Grimaldi will launch a new standard service between Brindisi, Igoumenitsa and Corfu adding to the service already offered throughout the year between Brindisi, Igoumenitsa and Patras.

In February, Grimaldi Group improved the Brindisi-Greece service thanks to the employment of the M/V Euroferry Olympia and Euroferry Egnazia, able to carry up to 3,200 lm and with a cargo capacity of 200 ro-ro units and 600 passengers. The Ravenna–Greece direct link joined the already operational transhipment connection, thus increasing the number of departures from Ravenna to Igoumenitsa and Patras to 5 a week.

Due to changes in the market, the Grimaldi Group has also decided to meet demand from the market by modifying the previous Rostock-Helsinki itinerary and introducing the harbour of Hanko to the line. Indeed, as of January, there are now 2 connections from Rostock to Hanko and vice versa and 2 connections from Rostock to Helsinki and vice versa.

In order to face the big challenges of 2015, Finnlines, the company serving the Baltic market and of the Grimaldi Group, has decided to invest in eco-friendly technologies on which it is spending about €65 million. Grimaldi Group is a leader in the maritime transport of cars and all ro-ro vehicles with one of the biggest fleets in the world of roro/multipurpose vessels and car carriers.

The fleet today consists of more than 100 vessels. The vessels are ro-ro/multipurpose, Pure Car and Truck Carrier, Cruise Ferry and High Speed Ferries. The current maritime connections operated by the group serve more than 120 ports in 47 countries in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Western Africa, North and South America.

Nowadays the Motorways of the Sea Network in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas alone is made up of 100 maritime lines operated by Grimaldi, Minoan, Finnlines and Malta Motorways of the Sea for the transport of cars, trailers, trucks and passengers. 

MV