24


Issue 2 2013


///IRELAND Strength in depth


Ireland may only now be emerging from one of its worst recessions in living memory, but there are still those with the vision to pursue grand projects - including a plan to create new berths on the river Shannon


Shannon Foynes has no fear of deep water


Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) has drawn up an ambitious master plan to double annual cargo volume over the next 30 years to 20 million tonnes. The Shannon estuary is the deepest waterway in Ireland. Port CEO Pat Keating says the


Vision 2041 plan, launched by Ireland’s transport minister Leo Varadkar on 22 February, has the full support of local authorities on both sides of the river and environment agencies. The document has no formal planning status, but Keating claims it could cut two to three years from the normal timetable as and when planning applications are submitted. SFPC has identified Foynes


Island, which has 20 metres of water alongside, as a likely single- user site to accommodate post- Panamax vessels. Nowhere else in Ireland has


this capability, Keating says. Cork has one 13 metre berth and both Dublin and Belfast are limited to 10-11 metres. A disused 40km rail line links Foynes with Limerick


The existing port of Foynes will be further developed under the Vision 2041 plan as well as Foynes Island, just visible at left


traffic away from Cork, though. Keating says the likes of Kerry Ingredients and Wyeth export most of their volumes east via Rotterdam and recognises that sailing “round the corner” of south- west Ireland is not an option. “There could be a case at some point for mother ships to call here and transhipment traffic to go back out, but not in the foreseeable future,” he admits. The government is set to


publish a new national ports policy document at the end of March. Keating expects it to be


City and the national network. The Vision 2041 document


points out that the Port of Cork’s failure to gain planning permission in 2008 for downstream port facilities made clear that the government wants more Irish freight to move by rail. Keating says a restored rail


connection could be important to mining group Xstrata, “serious commodity movers” such as Glencore and to renewable energy interests. Biomass imports from Western Canada would be


practicable into Foynes using post-Panamax vessels aſter the Panama Canal is widened, and could tap into a rail link to feed power stations in central Ireland that are currently fuelled by peat. The Foynes-Limerick line has been inactive since 2000 but the track is still in place and restoring it would cost a relatively modest €12 million. Keating says points and bridges would need to be upgraded and vegetation removed. SPFC would be one stakeholder, but he thinks the


plan would also attract private investment, while up to 10% of the cost could be met by European TEN-T funding. The existing general cargo


facility in Foynes port, which handles bulk fuels, animal feeds and scrap, will see its quay expanded from 580 to 960 metres under Vision 2041. Infilling behind the eastern jetty will create 2.4ha of open quay storage in a scheme scheduled to be complete by 2015. Shannon Foynes does not anticipate attracting container


“substantially different” from its predecessor, dating back to 2005, not least because of changes in the global and national economy. But he thinks it will follow the line taken in the McCarthy review of state assets produced in 2011. “McCarthy said there were too


many ports in the country and that Galway, Waterford and Drogheda among others were surplus to requirements,” he explains. “The government may not be inclined to privatise core ports, given their strategic role, but might let smaller ones sink or swim.”


Keating: Ireland’s smaller ports must sink or swim


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