Infant milk is Cork’s formula for success 20


Container traffic through Cork increased by 2.5% to 170,000teu last year, bucking the trend at Ireland’s other major ports. CMA CGM has been running a weekly Le Havre-Liverpool-Dublin-Cork rotation with an 800teu vessel since last July. Large amounts of infant formula and other powdered milk products


are exported via Cork to China and the Middle East. Port of Cork last year commissioned a study to determine the likely growth in traffic following the removal of European milk quotas in 2015. The consultant’s report revealed that the Irish dairy industry could increase its output by up to 50% over the next three years, with the


Munster region, Cork’s hinterland, leading the way. Overall exports were 8,000teu


ahead of imports in 2013, leaving Cork facing the prospective challenge of a box shortage, but commercial manager Michael McCarthy says shortsea operators Samskip, Eucon and BG Freight have all been cooperative in


repositioning empties. New shortsea services are in the pipeline as the market continues its recovery. Dry bulk is big business for Cork.


Cereal imports were up 55% last year, fertiliser 20% and animal feed 5%. “We have capitalised on our depth of water. Panamax ships of up to 25,000 tonnes offload


here. We get them down to 9 or 9.5 metres [required draught] and then they can call at Dublin or Belfast,” McCarthy says. The Ringaskiddy terminal


in Cork’s lower harbour, further from the city, is the focus of future development and Port of Cork will lodge a revised planning application in April aſter its previous plans were rejected in 2010. “We reviewed all the proposed


development sites and consulted with the county council and local


residents,” McCarthy says.


“We’ve tried to take their concerns on board while meeting our commercial needs. It’s a balancing act.”


The earlier scheme would have


involved the reclamation of 20ha of land, but 90% of this will now be unnecessary. A former car storage area at Ringaskiddy East can be converted to a multi-purpose berth and container yard as a result of changes in the way vehicles are distributed. Car imports are up 20% in the


first two months of this year, but Ireland’s move to twice-yearly registrations has taken a big annual spike out of the car market. Dealers are also operating on more of a just- in-time philosophy now, McCarthy observes. “When cars were in stock here for two or three months we were just a massive car park, but now it’s nearer to one week.” An Bord Pleanála, Ireland’s national planning authority,


will


probably announce its decision on Ringaskiddy by September. If it gives the green light, a new facility with a 300-metre berth, an additional 200-metre


berth and a new


container yard and marshalling area could be operational by 2018. Across the harbour at


Ringaskiddy West, a second phase of development would


see an existing deep-water berth extended and further dredging carried out. Poor access to the lower harbour


area - currently reached by a single-carriageway road through a village - was one reason cited for the previous planning refusal. However, Ireland’s National Roads Authority has committed to a motorway link that will serve a college, naval base and major local employers such as GlaxoSmithKline as well as the port. McCarthy says an upgraded terminal would


lengthen its


operating hours and introduce a demand management system to encourage drivers to deliver and pick up containers to the terminal


outside the morning


and evening rush hours. Noise mitigation measures would also be incorporated. Cork sees the award last year


of EU Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) funding, acknowledging it as a “future core network port”, as an endorsement of its expansion plans. The port’s longer-term strategic


development would involve the transfer of


city-centre container


berths, repair facilities and gas and chemical storage tanks to Marino Point over the next 8-10 years. With existing storage capacity as well as a conveyor there, bulk commodities such as salt, fertiliser and coal could be imported. Further opportunities exist


at Bantry Bay, the last port in the Irish republic to operate under the harbour commissioners system until ownership was transferred to Port of Cork on 1 January. Bantry Bay can accommodate VLCCs, has a million tonnes of storage and is home to a crude oil and refined products terminal. An oil field off the coast of Cork, Barryroe could begin production in the next three or four years.


Issue 2 2014 Freight Business Journal


///IRELAND


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