Port of Aalborg A/S is planning a new, larger container terminal under the working title Aalborg Container Terminal 2.
The terminal is scheduled to be placed in the 180,000-square-metre area east of the current basin where the existing container terminal is located. The water depth along the 500 metre long berth and the crane capacity will meet the demands of Feedermax ships calling. The terminal will include all functionalities, such as a materials yard, 24-hour drop-off capabilities, customs facilities, veterinarians, and more.
The Port of the Future
All available calculations suggest that Aalborg’s container business will grow in the future and that full capacity will be reached in 2022 when the port exceeds 100,000 TEU per annum.
The future also offers more traffic and increased use of environmentally-friendly modes of transport.
At the same time, container traffic in Aalborg is also growing in tandem with ocean ships becoming larger, as they become even more dependent on a flexible and regionally widespread network of feeder ports.
“The future of Danish container ports is precisely controlled by the development of feeder connections to and from the ports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. In addition, the Port of Aalborg tries to maintain and develop transit goods, primarily to and from the North Atlantic and secondarily to and from the Baltic Sea. It would only make sense to sail between the large continental ports with the giant ocean-going ships and let feeder traffic stand for direct delivery,” says Claus Holstein, Administrative Director of the Port of Aalborg A/S.
“With plans for Aalborg Container Terminal 2, Aalborg Port Logistics A/S will, with the current actors, address the scenarios considered and create more capacity for container business so that the whole port may reach 200,000 TEU per annum.
“The calculations are amongst other things made on the basis of well-founded theories that business in Aalborg will continue to grow, both in volume production and consumption, and that the Port of Aalborg will become even more of a logistical hub for the entire region,” says Thomas Kastrup-Larsen, Chairman Port of Aalborg A/S.
The risk is to be spread out
“By 2030, the board of the Port of Aalborg A/S wants the port to be an even more robust port that is not dependent on individual customers or individual activities. This means that the Port of Aalborg must grow so quickly that no customer accounts for more than a maximum of 15% of total revenue.
“This supports the need for a larger terminal in our strategy of diversification. It is very vulnerable to build a business on individual, large customers, so we have to continue the good work in attracting new customers. In the future we also need more competitive concepts that get the North Jutland import and export customers to use the Port of Aalborg with the advantages and the closeness that are associated with a modern, regional port,” says Claus Holstein.
There is no final decision on the start time, but it is expected that a new terminal will be operational about two years from the commencement of construction.
The existing container terminal will be available during the construction phase, and depending on developments can also be used in future. It may also be upgraded as needed.
Source: Port of Aalborg (LF) (This has been translated from Danish with some assistance from Google Translate)
Source: Port of Aalborg