Many dry bulk terminals in the Baltic Sea region saw traffic badly
hit by the recession. However, things now appear to be
returning to normal, with many terminals now targeting new
traffic flows.
INTER BALT is the forwarding arm of Poland’s leading coal
trader, the Weglokoks group, which cooperates closely with a
series of deep mines in the south of the country to expedite the
export of coal from that region. Roman Leonczak, commercial
director, explains that coal is exported via four main ports:
Gdansk, Gdynia, Swinoujscie and Szczecin.
“The vast majority of the coal that we deal with is sent to
Gdansk Northern Port, whose world class facilities are the best
in Poland. Not only do they achieve high loading productivity
with their shiploaders, but they also have extensive stockpiles
areas, which are ideal for the large consignments that we ship,”
he says.
The second most used port is Swinoujscie, which is ideally
placed on Poland’s western border to serve the neighbouring
German market.
However, despite handling via these ports an average of 5.5mt
(million tonnes) annually, Leonczak confirms that overall coal
production in Poland is decreasing. He explains that this is
mainly because of increased costs relating to deep mining
activity, which makes it difficult for Polish mines to up
production, while the mines themselves are located in
challenging geological areas.
“In terms of price, we observe that Polish coal is competitive.
Within Poland, Polish coal competes with that from Russia,
Columbia and Kazakhstan. The quality of their steam coal is
comparable to ours, but our hard coal is much better,” says
Leonczak.
Demand for Polish coal mainly comes from Germany,
followed by the UK/Ireland, France, Scandinavia and Belgium,
although the order of importance can vary from year to year
depending on local conditions. Leonczak also says that INTER
BALT has, from time to time, had to import Russian coal into
Poland for use in local heating and in electricity generating
stations.
Quizzed regarding the efficiency of Poland’s port sector, he
singles out Gdansk Northern Port and Swinoujscie, since both
are well-equipped for coal handling. The former offers average
loading rates of around 1,500tph (tonnes per hour), although
notes that 2,000tph is also achievable. Gdansk also offers 15
metres of draught, which is more than sufficient for the Panamax
vessels that routinely call there. Indeed, for European trades,
INTER BALT has to deal with vessels in the 2,000–60,000dwt
range, although Leonczak recalls that the largest ever bulk
transporter to call was of 135,000dwt.
“We usually export consignments of around 70,000 tonnes,
so Panamax vessels are sufficient for our needs,” he says, adding
that there is surplus capacity at the ports and that congestion is
rarely encountered.
Asked about the recession, he concedes that two years ago
there was a dramatic slump in the market, although since then
volumes have almost returned to pre-recession levels.
Interestingly, the extremely cold winters experienced by
northern European countries over the last two years have not
resulted in an upswing in demand.
Landside transport of coal to ports is almost entirely
undertaken by rail, with only a very few small or extremely
specialist consignments being shipped by road. According to
Leonczak, investment has been made in rail infrastructure to
upgrade it, although there is still more work that could be done.
Nevertheless, he views rail as being relatively efficient and more
than sufficient to meet current needs.
“The rail market is undergoing dramatic changes at the
moment with open access operators having begun business. At
the beginning, they competed on price alone. Since then, their
services have become more expensive, but this is because they
have concentrated on improving the quality of their service.
Nowadays, prices are good, but service has improved.
Companies are trying to maintain a level of services to their
customers, which is how we think they should operate. We,
nevertheless, tend to stick with one operator that is able to
offer advantageous rate plus good service levels,” says Leonczak.
Port Handlowy Swinoujscie (PHS) undertakes stevedoring
services at four terminals in the Polish port of Swinoujscie.
Marketing director Lukasz Przyszlak says that, typically, the
company handles 5mt per annum (mtpa) of dry bulk, of which
around 95% would normally be accounted for by import-export
coal.
“[The year] 2009 was a disaster, with traffic down to 2.7mt
and both inbound and outbound coal consignments really badly
affected by the recession,” he says.
However, PHS has also suffered major traffic losses in the
past, but nevertheless managed to add tonnage in other areas to
compensate. In 2008, for example, Mittal Arcelor acquired an
iron ore mine in Ukraine and therefore stopped using
Swinoujscie to import this commodity into Poland. Nowadays,
just residual quantities of iron ore pass through the port.
“Although our current focus is on coal, we also have some
traffic in cereals, aggregates for local markets, as well as some
manganese ore and iron ore,” he says.
Swinoujscie has become Poland’s leading import coal port,
currently handling twice as many inbound consignments as it
does outbound ones. The export market is in steam coal from
the south of the country, which mostly goes to Germany and
also Denmark for electricity generation. Imported coal is mined
in North America and South America, with more recent
consignments also from Australia. This is coking coal for steel
production.
In the future, PHS expects to see inbound soya shipments at
its new Portowcow terminal, which is currently under
construction for US-based multinational Bunge. Operations are
expected to commence in May or June of this year, with annual
throughput expected to be 600,000 tonnes, rising possibly to
1mt. Draught of 11.9 metres will allow Panamax vessels to
operate there.
Gornikow quay is where the majority of PHS’s coal
operations are concentrated. 100% of coal exports go via this
quay and half of all coal imports come ashore here. A shiploader
handles exports and is linked to a belt conveyor system. There
are also two Liebherr mobile harbour cranes used for coal
discharge and for some consignments of general cargo.
On fully laden Panamax vessels, daily coal discharge rates of
up to 22,000 tonnes are achieved, which Przyszlak claims is the
best of any Polish ports. He says that Gdynia claims around
15,000 tonnes per day and Szczecin 8,000–10,000 tonnes.
“Our loading rate is 25,000 tonnes a day, while Gdansk
achieves around 30,000 tonnes, but has larger shiploaders. We
are the only two ports in Poland that have the right equipment
to load Panamax vessels,” he says.
Ninety-nine per cent of the coal handled by PHS is moved by
train. For export coal, there are two wagon tipplers, which have
a theoretical daily capacity of 20,000 tonnes, although rarely
would all that be required within a 24-hour period. For imports,
there is a stacker/reclaimers, with a loading tower and belt
conveyors. Stockpile capacity is 1.2mt.
Imported coal is sent about 500km to the industrial region in
the south of the country. Other consignments also go to the
Czech and Slovak republics, a distance of 800km.
Each block train is 600m long and composed of 40 wagons.
In terms of other traffic, aggregates and occasional iron ore
shipments are handled at Hutnikow Quay, where PHS has two
gantry cranes in place.
Chemikow Quay, as the name implies, was previously
dedicated to chemicals, such as phosphates, but this traffic has
subsequently left the port. “There is a good size warehouse here
and we are hoping to use it to attract future imported biomass
traffic,” says Przyszlak. “The actual berth is already equipped
with two gantry cranes and belt conveyors, which could be used
for hard biomass products, such as PKS.”
He notes that Swinoujscie does also see calls occasionally
from geared vessels, which mostly offload steel products, but
they are less common than they once were. Self-discharging
vessels are also used to transport some aggregates.
It is the port authority that is responsible for upkeep of the
draught. The best available is 13.2m, which means that
customers using PHS facilities have to be able to adjust to that.
“Panamax vessels load up to 13.2m of draught, but could take
on more coal if there were deeper water. The port authority
knows that we would like 15 metres of draught, but that would
also mean having to rebuild existing berths and also dredge the
approach channel, which would be very expensive. However, we
would definitely attract more traffic if we had deeper draught,”
he says, adding that the biggest Panamax vessel nowadays
received is in the order of 80,000dwt, although the average size
is 65,000dwt.
Significantly, being a major coal handler, PHS is able to provide
customers with a range of value added services, including
crushing, screening and, the most important, blending. It also
stores different grades of coal separately.
“Steam coal customers do quite often ask us for these
services, although importers of coking coal do not,” says
Przyszlak.
Quizzed about future developments, he points out that, two
years ago, PHS only had one coal discharge quay and now it has
two, with the purchase of two MHCs (mobile harbour cranes)
being a key factor in this.
“We are investing in the business all the time. We are now
looking at acquiring modern hoppers to accept coal and these
will be connected to the belt conveyor system. We also plan to
build a professional loading tower. Our existing tower is small
and of low capacity, because we had to put it in quickly, but now
we need a bigger one with a higher capacity. The storage area is
to be increased, too, plus by rebuilding the rail sidings into our
terminals, we can increase loading speeds.”
The Swedish port of Helsingborg barely noticed that there
was a recession at all. In 2010, for example, throughput for solid
bulk amounted to 939,000 tonnes, which was a 9% increase over
the 862,000 tonnes handled in 2009. While this is itself
impressive, it compares with the 663,000 tonnes reported in
2007, which was before the recession began to take a grip, and
throughput of 849,000 tonnes registered at the height of the
downturn in 2008.
“During the recession, dry bulk traffic grew a lot, plus there
were no dramatic changes for the different commodities that we
handle,” notes port authority sales manager Kjell Ranft.
Helsingborg nowadays mainly handles wooden pellets, grain
and various chemical products and for 2010, 546,000 tonnes of
these were inbound and 393,000 tonnes outbound. In all, there
are three terminals dedicated to this traffic. One of them is for
the discharging of pellets, which is undertaken by one of the
port authority’s own mobile harbour cranes. Then there is a
grain terminal, which has its own equipment for for selfloading/
discharging vessels. As for
chemical products, these are
handled either by quayside cranes
or come ashore using ships’ gear.
Helsingborg used to be a major
centre for coal traffic, but this was
effectively replaced by wooden
pellets some years ago. In fact, coal
traffic has more or less disappeared
from the Swedish market, with few
ports nowadays handling it.
In 2010, imported pellets
amounted to 200,000 tonnes. They
are discharged via a conveyor
directly from vessel into the local power plant, which is situated
adjacent to the port. Grain traffic flows both ways, 55,000
tonnes being imported last year and 239,000 tonnes exported.
The dedicated terminal is an effective hub for the whole of
southern Sweden, with grain transported by lorries and tractors.
The chemicals terminal is owned by Kemira, although vessel
handling is undertaken directly by the port authority. In 2010,
291,000 tonnes of various chemicals were imported and 154,000
tonnes exported, with most of the production of the latter
undertaken at the Kemira chemical plant situated in the bulk
harbour.
“Helsingborg is able to offer a draught of between 7 metres
and 13.5 metres, depending on the terminal involved. This has
proved more than sufficient, since there is no record of us having
to turn away a vessel requiring deeper water,” says Ranft.
Interestingly, he adds that none of the bulk trades can be said
to be worked by a typically sized vessel. This kind of traffic, he
says, is not liner based, so different sized vessels will call
depending on the size of the consignment and the
origin/destination point of each shipment. The largest vessel has
been around 40,000GT.
“We have looked into offering customers using the port
various added value services associated with dry bulk
consignments, but to date nobody has shown an interest,” says
Ranft.
Finally, in respect of plans to expand this sector, he says that
the port authority is not considering this. The main reason is
that Port of Helsingborg is currently concentrating on
developing the unitized traffic, which means either containers or
trailers, which is where main growth is expected and where the
port can be competitive in the future.
In the three small Danish ports of Bandholm, Nakskov and
Rødbyhavn, the Alfr. Hovmand company acts as shipbroker and
port agent, as well as arranging stevedoring and handling services
for both loading and discharge operations.
In respect of traffic, shipbroker Phillip Hovmand notes, “There
has been a reduction of about 35% overall in the last two years,
which has mainly affected food stuffs for export. In general,
Bandholm and Nakskov have increasing tonnages of export food
stuffs. In the coming years, we have expectations for more
imported stone traffic at Bandholm. All other cargoes are
presently relatively stable.”
All three ports are equipped with mobile harbour cranes.
That in Bandholm is hydraulically operated and has an 18m
outreach. It can be fitted with a grab, hook, finger grab or yokes
for big bags. The unit at Rødbyhavn can handle loads of up to 32
tonnes, while Nakskov has a hydraulically operated mobile crane
with an 18m outreach as well as rail-mounted crane with
capacity up to 100 tonnes.
In terms of commodities
handled, Bandholm, which handles
annual dry bulk traffic amounting to
130,000 tonnes, exports wheat
and barley to countries such as
Germany, Holland, Belgium, Poland,
Spain, Russia, Norway, Sweden. It
also exports logs to Norway and
Germany. The port imports stone
from Denmark, Sweden and
Norway; soyabean meal from
Denmark, Holland and Germany;
fertilizer from Finland, Poland,
Belgium, UK and Norway; and wood
pellets from Poland, Sweden and the Baltic states.
For its part, Rødbyhavn exports wheat and barley to
Germany and imports fertilizer from Finland, Poland, Belgium, UK
and Norway. It averages annual traffic amounting to 50,000
metric tonnes.
However, it is Nakskov that has by far the biggest
involvement in the dry bulk trade. There, around 300,000
tonnes a year are handled. Wheat and barley are exported to
Germany, Holland, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Russia, Norway and
Sweden and sugar to the Baltic states. Inbound, Denmark,
Sweden and Norway are the source for stone traffic, while
Finland and Poland generate consignments of fertilizer. Wood
pellets are also imported, coming from Poland, Sweden and the
Baltic states.
In terms of landside movements, consignments are moved by
trucks and tractors to and from regional producers and farmers,
while some project cargoes are moved by specialized trucking
and crane companies.
The draught at all three ports is reasonably modest.
Bandholm, for example, offers 5.80 metres at mean tide and
Rødbyhavn 5.00 metres. At Nakskov, available draught varies
between the 13 different berths, from 5 metres up to 8.5
metres.
“The port at Nakskov was dredged one year ago and
presently has sufficient draught for its needs. Both Bandholm
and Rødbyhavn would benefit from increased draught to also
accommodate larger vessels that cannot presently call,” says
Hovmand.
Currently, the average vessel size at Rødbyhavn is 1500
tonnes, while at Bandholm this is 2,000–3,000 tonnes, although
larger 5,800-tonne vessels do carry project cargo. As would be
expected, the average visitor at Nakskov is in the region of 3,000
tonnes, with ships of up to 10,000 tonnes deployed on project
cargo duties.
“At Bandholm and Nakskov, reprocessing and rebagging
facilities are available to customers,” Hovmand notes.
When quizzed as to future developments, he says that, in all
three ports, there are plans to increase the handling of additional
tonnages over the coming years. There is also an expectation
that they may become service ports in connection with the
building of the Femern Link.
 
 
Port of Koper handled 6.3mt of dry bulk cargo in 2010
The Slovenian Port of Koper, operated by Luka Koper plc,
offers a wide range of handling services for many types of dry
bulk cargoes: coal, iron ore, cereals, soya, fodder, minerals,
alumina, etc.
A total of 6.3mt (million tonnes) of dry bulk cargoes
passed through Port of Koper in 2010, which represents 41%
of the total annual maritime throughput.
The port’s main activities are divided between four
terminals:
 
EUROPEAN ENERGY TERMINAL
The European Energy Terminal handles and warehouses coal
and iron ore which are transported in both export and
import directions.
The terminal equipment enables the loading and unloading of
cargo on/off all means of transport (wagon, truck, barge/ship). A
closed conveyor belt system links the quay with the storage
areas and a wagon loading station. The terminal can unload
Capesize and Panamax vessels simultaneously, as well as load all
vessels up to Handysize. Additional services available at the
terminal are: screening; blending; and crushing.
Terminal and environment
As the terminal is located close to urban areas, special attention
is devoted to environmental aspects. In order to limit the
negative effects that the terminal has on the environment,
particularly in terms of dust emissions, the port has introduced
several solutions such as:
  • an 11m-high aluminium barrier around the terminal;
  • a system of sprinkling towers on the storage areas and sprinkling devices on the handling equipment;
  • a shiploader equipped with a dust-controlled telescopic tube;
  • and an unloading system equipped with a sensor, which detects the radioactivity of cargo.
TERMINAL FOR CEREALS AND FODDER
This terminal specializes in handling and warehousing different
kinds of cereals and fodder such as: grains, various seeds,
processed soya and other agro-food products. In order to
provide suitable storage for cargo, a specialized silo and flat
warehouses are used. Both facilities are entirely computercontrolled
and equipped with commercial weighing machines.
The terminal also has a dedicated wagon loading/unloading
station which is directly connected to railway tracks. With these
existing capacities, the terminal can support an annual
throughput of over 1mt.
Additional services include: fumigation; separation; mixing;elevation; and control.
 
TERMINAL FOR MINERALS
This terminal handles minerals, industrial minerals and other bulk
material, mostly bauxite, borax, cement, phosphates, ilmenite, clinker,
perlite, sintermagnesite, scrap, etc.
The terminal loads/unloads up to four trainsets per day.
 
ALUMINA TERMINAL
Modern equipment includes an unloading machine, a closed conveyor
belt system that feeds into a silo with a 20,000-tonne capacity, and a
wagon loading system. A modern weighing system guarantees that
wagons are loaded to full capacity.