UK NORTH WEST\\\


Issue 3 2015 - Freight Business Journal


33


Northern Powerhouse ready to go live


If the North-west of England was a country in its own right, it would be bigger than many EU nation states. Talk in government circles of a Northern Powerhouse is a long overdue recognition of the region’s economic potential. It packs a lot of people and manufacturing into a small area – and now it is about to gain a freight and logistics infrastructure to match.


Ready to change the rules of the port game


With construction of Peel Ports’ Liverpool2 development entering its final stages, the scene is nearly set for one of the most profound changes to UK container shipping for many years. While it could be argued that DP World’s new London Gateway is a bigger port for bigger ships, it really only offered an alternative to other quite capable ports in


south-east England.


Liverpool2 is a game-changer in the sense that it will open up the ports market in the central corridor to far bigger vessels than before. In a sense, it will be a return, if not


to Victorian values, then Victorian logic, says port director, David Huck. “They had two ports – one in London and the other in Liverpool – and they didn’t get much wrong.” Liverpool, now as then, is close to a large chunk of the UK and Ireland’s population and should arguably be the port of choice for anywhere from the Midlands northwards. But until now, Liverpool’s


infrastructure has prevented it from playing its full part in the nation’s trade. Without Liverpool2, the port could comfortably handle ships of around 3,000teu, which for decades was a reasonable size for the main trades that Liverpool was involved in – such as North America, India, and West Africa. But lately there has been a surge in ship size, spearheaded by the introduction of 15-18,000teu monsters on the main East-West trades, which has led to a cascade of much bigger vessels onto the secondary and tertiary trades. Suddenly, 5,000teu – which would have been considered cutting-edge a decade or so ago – isn’t considered


There is a lot happening in


shipping at the moment, and it’s not entirely coincidental that another big project, the widened Panama canal, is set to open at about the same time as Liverpool2, says Huck. This means that there is likely to be an upsurge in ship size on the round-the world Americas trades, round about the end of 2015, when Liverpool2 is due to open. In fact, the size of vessel that can pass through the Liverpool lock gates and the Panama Canal are broadly the same today. It’s too early to second-guess


what services and ships might be attracted to the enlarged Liverpool, and while construction is making good progress, it’s a little early to be firming up contracts with shipping lines, Huck says. At the moment, the nine container lines that call are broadly in the Transatlantic trades, along with short-sea feeder operators. But there could be profound changes to future shipping patterns – much larger


fact been multi-user feeders,” Huck explains. “And we’ve seen volumes increase on both these and our transatlantic services.” Another canal, much closer


to home, is also of great interest to the owners of the port of Liverpool. Peel Ports is also owner of the Manchester Ship Canal, the first time that the two interests – which historically have been at loggerheads with each other – have enjoyed the benefits of common ownership. Many of the canal side quays and jetties that had been allowed to fall derelict are being revived; some of them for dry and liquid bulks, but there are also some container facilities too. “The container shuttle service along the canal has gone from strength to strength,” says Huck. “We started with a push-tug arrangement, but we move to a 250teu and then 300teu coaster vessels.” This not only has more capacity but copes with adverse weather in the Mersey Estuary


very large these days. Liverpool2 will


though give the port the


capability of handling vessels of up to about 13,000teu plus, which would be a very reasonable size for Liverpool’s main container trades.


feeder vessels or return of round- the-world services, in the future now that much bigger ships will soon be able to transit the Panama Canal. “Most of our growth lately has in


a lot better. Moreover, now that a seagoing vessel is used, it is also possible to make the hop across the Irish Sea to Dublin (where Peel Ports operates a terminal) and feed traffic to and from Ireland through Liverpool and Manchester. “At the moment we run it into


Irlam (near Manchester) but now that we’re going ahead with Port Salford – an anchor tenant has


recently signed up – so we might run it there, possibly in addition to Irlam, or we might retrench from there. Port Salford has a big land bank and is a truly trimodal terminal, offering rail, motorway and canal connectivity.” At the moment, the coaster


makes the trip up the canal twice a week, but Peel Ports would like to increase this to thrice-weekly. The


current vessel is more or less the maximum size that can operate down the canal, so increasing frequency would be the only way to further boost capacity on the service. Liverpool is becoming a


crossroads for Irish Sea traffic, able to offer canal or shortsea connections to Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast and Manchester.


More good stuff from Quality Freight


Quality Freight UK has agreed a new 20-year lease with Peel Ports for its 40-acre multi-modal facility in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire. Expansion plans include


investing a seven-figure sum in the development of a new 40,000sq ſt warehouse to increase the volume, quality and variety of goods that can be housed on the site. The company is also planning to boost its vehicle fleet from nine to 12 trucks in the coming months. Quality Freight UK is part


of the Quality Freight Group. It also has bases in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Knock, Hull, Grangemouth, Chatham and Rotterdam. The


latest investment in


Ellesmere Port comes less than a year aſter a £300,000 investment in a new Fuchs MHL 360E crane for the facility’s rail head which is handling more than 200,000 tonnes a year, reopened by Peel Ports in 2011 for bulk and container traffic.


Managing director of Quality Freight UK, Sebastian Gardiner,


says: “Our capital expenditure


programme reinforces our commitment to Ellesmere Port and our desire to enhance our position as a leading multi-modal facility. The signing of the lease and our expansion plans will also enable us to add to our 50-strong workforce.” Peel Ports is “an excellent


partner because they share the same passion and commitment in ensuring that UK ports are able to offer the best possible infrastructure, facilities and services.” Peel’s group land and property


director, Andrew Martin, added: “We are fully supportive of Quality Freight’s expansion plans and their commitment to investing in new facilities that will underpin their growing business. We look forward to working with Seb and his team to drive port activity in the future.” While there has been heavy


investment in rail recently, most freight comes into the Quality site by water, via the Manchester


Ship Canal. The berth can handle vessels of up to 15,000 tonnes, though 5-6,000 tonnes is the optimum size, says Gardiner and in fact “it is one of the biggest dry cargo terminals on the Canal.” Quality Freight actually has the


largest ship chartering department outside London says Gardiner who is himself a qualified shipbroker. Quality Freight has trained up its own brokers; surprisingly, perhaps, there is a shortage of ready- qualified people on Merseyside, and there aren’t too many freight forwarders or truck drivers either. As well as bulk ships, Quality also


handles containers on the barge service operated by Peel ports from Liverpool, which Gardiner would like to see expanded further. With the opening of the new Liverpool2 container port in late 2015 or early 2016, there is every prospect of this happening, he believes and, with limited capacity available in Liverpool’s roads and railways, the canal would be the ideal way of handling the extra traffic.


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