The recession appears to be over at some of Northern Europe’s dry bulk ports, with operators reporting rising levels of traffic.
The Belgian Port of Ghent registered a 21% drop in dry bulk traffic in 2009, having previously produced record numbers up until November 2008. Daan Schalck, CEO of Ghent Port Company recalls that the second and third quarters of 2009 were very bad indeed, but that a certain recovery began to kick in as of October. Business picked up dramatically in 2010, with growth topping 29%.
“One year after the crisis had begun, we were once again breaking records,” he says.
Coal traffic, which had already been in long-term decline because of a switch in mainland Europe towards greener energy sources, was particularly badly hit during the recession, while the ArcelorMittal steel plant had to close down half of its production capability, slashing its need for imported ore by 50%.
In 2010, around 19mt (million tonnes) of total traffic at Ghent was in the form of dry bulk, which represents 65% of all commodities handled.
“For the first six months of 2011, we have registered growth of 4% in seaborne traffic and around 8% in shipments by inland barge. We had expected flat growth, so were very pleased with this, although don’t expect the last two quarters to be as good,” says Schalck. He explains that, while coal and iron ore volumes have held
up, those for imported salt — which Ghent only began handling three years ago for a new client — actually increased because of the bad winter experienced in Belgium. Indeed, in 2010 alone, the port handled 370,000 tonnes of salt for both road use and food production. Fertilizer traffic is also doing well, with imports distributed among a growing portfolio of clients.
However, the most significant growth has come in imported woodchip to feed a new, 180MW biomass power plant built adjacent to the port. On a good year, this will require 800,000 tonnes of woodchip, whose growth should more than compensate for the continuing drop off in coal volume. The storage area for wood pellets, which covers 150,000m2, occupies the site of a former coal stockpile zone. The new warehouse there was built as recently as 2010 and is entirely automated, being 600 metres in total length.
The biomass plant started regular operations in August, although had previously undertaken trial runs to test the system. Now, Ghent expects to receive two vessels every month laden with wood chip to feed the plant.
The largest vessel that Ghent can accommodate is a 260- metre long and 37-metre wide Panamax, drawing no more than 12.5 metres of water. While the largest shipment of wood chip has yet to exceed 30,000 tonnes, iron ore carriers of up to 80,000 tonnes are not unknown.
According to Schalck, most of the stevedoring companies working in the port favour the use of mobile harbour cranes (MHCs) over fixed quayside lift, because they like to deploy equipment across various berths and facilities, so value MHC flexibility. Irregular salt and fertilizer shipments, for example, are invariably discharged using these. However, big clients, such as ArcelorMittal and Sea-invest, which operates the coal terminal, both use grab cranes. The former has recently acquired a new portal crane, while the latter already has in place a complement of six rail-based units.
In all, some 20 berths deal with a variety of dry bulk commodities.
Going forward, Schalck confesses to feel very optimistic about the future of dry bulk at Ghent. In particular, he thinks there is much scope for attract new industrial customers, especially linked to biomass production facilities.
“For us, it’s a strategic choice to go into this market,” he says. “We believe that wood pellets will still be coming to this port in 15 years’ time, because of the existence of the generating station. We are quite confident in the future that our traffic figures will be better than they are today. Ghent could become a major distribution centre for woodchip as a result.We are also optimistic about prospects for bio-diesel and bio-ethanol production, since we have a plant on site which uses rape seed and others agri-bulks to produce these.”
Ghent has had notable success in the past of adding value to dry bulk, not simply acting as a basic handling agent. Compared with Antwerp, Rotterdam or Zeebrugge, Ghent’s added value rate per tonne is much higher, because it has been able to attract a cluster of industrial activities to the port, where steel and coke are both produced.
“In addition, we are home to specialist stevedoring companies that wash and crush coal, not simply discharge it.”
Although 75% of the dry bulk handled by Ghent is imported, it also has major outbound flows of scrap metal. A sector company within the port dismantles unwanted sea-going vessels along with 160,000 cars annually. Some 1.2mt of scrap are subsequently exported to Turkey and Egypt.
In terms of investment, in addition to the already mentioned new woodchip warehouse, two other, smaller facilities have also been built recently, while three new cranes were also acquired in 2010.
The German inland port of Lu¨nen is linked to the River Rhine via a canal, along which barges are used to bring coal from the Port of Rotterdam to the adjacent power station, which is operated by Trianel Energy. In effect, Lu¨nen acts as a dedicated coal reception facility, with its own management company, which is quite separate to that of the barge company.
The inbound coal is handled by grab cranes, which discharge directly onto an enclosed conveyor belt system, this then ships consignments directly to one of two 80,000-tonne silos. These are operated on behalf of the power plant by Eurosilo, which claims that it has some 200,000m3 of storage capacity available.
According to Eurosilo sales manager, Richard Spaargaren, this extensive facility is necessary to ensure a constant supply of coal is available to the power plant even if inbound consignments have to be halted by low water levels on the canal.
“It’s emergency backup,” he says.
The power plant makes use of steam coal, which is sourced worldwide, from countries such as Poland, Colombia, South
Africa and Australia, depending on price and availability. “Our speciality is in storing coal,” says Spaargaren, pointing
out that Eurosilo first checks the coal for abnormally high temperatures and for impurities. There’s also a sieve in place to take out the big lumps.
Afterwards, the conveyors take the coal to the very top of the silo, where it drops down through a telescopic shoot to the centre of the silo. An orca frame, which is supported from above by cables, ensures that coal is then distributed from the middle out towards the edges.The coal is therefore spread out in even layers on the top surface of the existing coal. Once one whole round of layering has been completed, the orca frame is raised and the process continues, coal being stored layer by layer.
“This make sure there is an even load on the silo walls,” says Spaargaren.
Hotspots in the silo are also monitored, because coal has a tendency to self heat, he adds, noting that by totally enclosing the coal in concrete and maintaining strict compaction of coal in the silo, oxygen incursion is rare, limiting the possibility for hot spots to break out.
“Incidents with our silos are much less frequent when compared to dome systems,” he claims.
Indeed, Eurosilo has been operating a similar silo system at Hamburg since 1994. In that time, there have been only two self- heating incidents, which Spaargaren says is virtually negligible.
There are, however, some differences in operation. In Hamburg, a lock system means inbound consignments have to be transported by individual barges, which can carry up to 2,500 tonnes. These are operated by the thermal power plant that is burning the coal, which also manages the discharge terminal on the river. Management of the two 50,000m3 silos is outsourced to Eurosilo.
Both at Hamburg and at a Lu¨nen a primary CO2 detection system and a back-up nitrogen purging system are installed in each silo to detect incidents before they get out of control. Coal in the silos would normally stay there between one and two months.
Discharge from the Lu¨nen silos is from the central section at the bottom. Here, there are two uncoalers, which are essentially vibrating machines. By controlling the amplitude of the vibration, the feed rate onto the discharge conveyors can be controlled. Furthermore, by taking coal from the central section a core flow of coal can be created within the silo.
“A crater develops in the top layer of the coal and that crater is filled by the orca system. In effect, the orca system has been reversed and coal is being transferred from the sides of the silo to the centre. The coal is being dug out layer by layer,” explains Spaargaren.
Finally, the 500-metre long discharge conveyor transports the coal to one of four 5,000m3 day bunkers at the power plant, which are connected directly to the on site mill.
“The recession has had little or no impact on our operations at either Lu¨nen or Hamburg. In fact, because of the new policy in Germany to cut back on the use of atomic energy, the Hamburg plant, which produces more heat than power, is now operating at full capacity even in the summer,” he notes.
The German Baltic port of Rostock registered overall growth of 10% in 2010, prompting Ulrich Bauermeister, managing director of Hafen-Entwicklungsgesellschaft Rostock mbH, to note: “Things are gradually looking up after the slump of 2009, although we are still quite a bit away from the level of 2008.”
Dry bulk traffic of 6mt was up 11% compared with the 5.4mt handled in 2009, while liquid bulk grew by 15%. “In the coming years, we will focus on stabilizing cargo handling particularly of these two main cargo types at a high level and further increase amounts after the deepening of the navigational channel,” says Bauermeister.
According to rail operator DB Schenker, Rostock Seaport is the most important port on the German Baltic Sea coast in terms of overall rail traffic. “About 8,800 trains with 156,000 wagons are loaded and unloaded here each year, making Rostock the German Baltic Sea port with the largest volume of railway cargo transport for DB Schenker,” says Dr. Bernd-R. Pahnke, Port Liaison Officer North and Vice President Business Development of DB Mobility Logistics AG. All told, DB Schenker moved close to 3.9mt of cargo at the port in 2010.
“Private rail operators at the seaport moved another 800,000 tonnes incoming and outgoing. This means that around one fifth (4.7mt) of all goods handled at the port (23.7mt) are brought in or carried out by rail. This trend will increase further after the completion of the upgrading of the Rostock-Berlin railway line,” says Bauermeister.
The majority of traditional dry bulk traffic at the port is handled by Bulk Terminal Rostock GmbH (BTR). In addition to hard coal, the company also currently handles ores, building materials, fertilizer, gypsum, peat and wood chips.
Handling equipment consists of two hopper-equipped gantry cranes and two ships unloaders, all of which achieve productivity of around 2,000tph (tonnes per hour). All are fitted with belt conveyor scales and magnetic belt separators.
Storage of 20,000m2 is available adjacent to the berths, while a further 100,000m2 is to be found in the back up area. All these stockpiles are connected by conveyor belt systems and have stacker/reclaimer capability. Hard coal storage alone is around 300,000 tonnes.
Block wagon trains pass through a dedicated loading facility, which is capable of achieving rates of up to 800tph. Truck loading is undertaken by both cranes and also dedicated wheel loaders.
According to the company, the conveyor belt and loading systems are centrally controlled and monitored, while the discharge capacity for coal vessels is around 20,000 tonnes per day. It also has a ‘captive’ client in the form of a power station located alongside the port to which it is connected via a conveyor belt network.
Ships are handled at berths 22–24, which offer a total of 800 metres of quay. Berths 22 and 23 have alongside draught of 10 metres, although Berth 24 can accommodate vessels drawing up to 13 metres of water.
Coal tends be discharged at berths 23 and 24, which offer a combined daily capacity of up to 20,000 tonnes. At berth 22, overhead cranes concentrate on the unloading of limestone, gravel chippings and sea gravel.
More bulk handling also takes place at Berth 21, where a port crane with an hourly output of up to 700 tonnes is deployed. The port is also equipped with a processing plant for sea gravel and a cement terminal, which uses a pipeline to environmentally discharge consignments into a cement storage facility.
Value added services in the form of compression, re-stowing, blending and weighing of both cargo (using the conveyor belt system) and trucks (using scales).