IRELAND\\\ Winds of change blow for Belfast


Belfast Harbour is striving to repeat its record performance in 2018 in tonnage terms, but it will be tough call, says port commercial manager Colin McClements. Last year saw a fodder crisis on the island of Ireland which led to unprecedented amounts of animal feed being imported. The current round of offshore


windmill construction by Orsted also came to an end that year and while there are hopes of further similar work, it may be some time before things start moving again. The Crown Estate is currently running another tender but it will probably be a few years before things start to move again. However, the Irish Republic also has a number of offshore schemes and Belfast, with its 50-acre facility next to a deep water berth, would be in a strong position to tender for any work. The UK, meanwhile, is planning


a new system whereby wind turbine builders would tender for individual projects rather


than whole schemes. This, it is hoped, will give a smoother flow of work than the current stop-start situation. However, the industry will have to wait for the process to be restarted. There has also been a large


programme of onshore wind turbine construction in Northern Ireland but again, there are no current projects. However, there are hopes that some developers will go ahead with schemes whereby electricity is sold direct to major industrial users, without having to wait for subsidies to be made available. Meanwhile, Belfast Harbour has


unveiled its Vision 2035 plan that will not only increase the port’s capability in terms of the number and size of vessels it can handle but will also help diversify the business. In a sense, work on the ambitious scheme has already started, McClements points out, as the current upgrades of the container and ro ro terminals are an integral part of the longer-term plan.


IWT looks forward to the next decade of Dublin trains


Dublin based International Warehousing and Transport (IWT) has celebrated the tenth anniversary of its first intermodal train between Dublin Port and Ballina in County Mayo. Originally, just two return trains per week were operated. The loading in Dublin Port took place on the Alexandra Road tramway - not ideal conditions with heavy road traffic passing by. The operation became slicker


when Dublin Port Company built its new quayside rail terminal which opened in May 2011 and services have increased to up to nine trains each way per week, depending on customer requirements. Rail traffic has increased primarily due to the steadily increasing costs of road haulage and, with Dublin’s container volumes increasing by 4.0% to 726,000teu in 2018, queues of trucks have build up outside terminals and there is increased


road congestion. IWT estimates that the 2,673


trains operated in the 10 years since inception have cut close on 10 million kg of CO2


emissions. The anchor business ten years


ago, as now, was the soſt drinks factory at Ballina but the customer base has expanded including medical supplies. Trains departing from Dublin Port have average loadings of 99%. Rail operator Iarnród Éireann has been testing longer trains and a 17% increase in train loading is expected to be permitted soon. In 2012 IWT purchased land


adjacent to the freight yard in Ballina for use as a buffer stock allowing customers to store product close to production facilities, reducing lead time and eliminating costly storage charges at Dublin Port. Regular deliveries to Westport, Letterkennny, Tuam and Castlebar are made from the site.


The container terminal will


get new automated cranes and other equipment that will allow it to handle significantly more than the current 130,000 boxes a year throughput. Similarly, the ro ro terminal is getting a double-deck linkspan ahead of the introduction of the first of two Stena Line E-flexer ferries for the Belfast-Birkenhead route in about six months’ time, with the second to follow about six months aſter that. Stena is the main ro ro operator


in Belfast – it also operates routes to Cairnryan and Heysham – services that could see increased capacity as it cascades vessels


through


its fleet. Stena is an important ro ro freight carrier and also brings in trade cars to Belfast, as well as wheeled cargo out of Northern Ireland. While Ballymena based


bus builder Wrightbus has gone into administration, the firm has now been rescued by a new owner. Meanwhile there also major manufacturers of mining and other machinery based in the province to keep the ro ro decks full. The Vision 2035 scheme will


increase the size of vessel that can be handled in the port, an important factor to consider as vessel operators cascade ships through their fleets. What might have been considered a main line vessel a couple of decades ago is a potential feeder ship of tomorrow. Belfast Harbour currently handles regular container feeder services from Rotterdam and Antwerp. The Vision 2035 scheme also


allows for the current cruise terminal to be relocated and separated from the wind turbine


No clear road for Brexit yet


With only days to go before the official 31 October Brexit deadline, Northern Ireland’s logistics industry – and its customers – have no clear picture of what the future holds, says the Freight Transport Association’s Northern Ireland policy manager, Seamus Leheny. FTA’s haulier members have


been contacted by their customers, many of whom are under the impression that they will be in a position to carry out customs clearances on their behalf. Having disabused the customer of that notion, transport operators have been contacting the province’s few customs brokers asking if they would be prepared to handle their business, only to be told ‘no’. “Customs agents can pick and choose what work, they take on,” Leheny explains. Most of the customs agents


are linked to other businesses like freight forwarding, and they will naturally give priority to their existing customer base if there is any clearance work to be done. The plan revealed by British PM


Boris Johnson in early October, for a string of ‘designated areas’ (customs border posts in all but name), would have been a far worse solution than the ‘Backstop’ scheme that has been so roundly rejected by the politicians, in Leheny’s opinion. The Backstop plan did have some attractions, from a business point of view. It could have meant Northern Ireland becoming a sort of free trade zone, able to deal with third countries and the EU equally easily.


It’s frustrating that the Backstop proposal wasn’t ‘sold’ sufficiently vigorously to the public and politicians, he says. Now, Johnson seems to have


pulled back from that plan and has instead announced a scheme that would, effectively, create a border of some sort in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the UK mainland. But while it appears that there would be no customs checks between Northern Ireland and Ireland, there is instead the potential for administrative and customs checks between Northern Ireland and mainland UK and, at the time of writing in late October, still a lack of clarity and detail, says Leheny. The designated area scheme


had promised to be a bureaucratic and logistics nightmare, especially for cross-border trade. Customs entries would have to be lodged before goods could leave the premises of the ‘exporter’ and then travel to the ‘designated area’ for the entry to be lodged. They would then cross the border and visit the second ‘designated area’, apparently tracked by GPS all the while. Apparently there would also be mobile surveillance teams to ensure that people were sticking to the rules and using the laid-down designated routes. Quite apart from the fact that no


one has ever built such a system before,


it would have needed


massive new infrastructure and technology and would amount to putting all freight vehicles in the border area under mass


Issue 7 2019 - FBJ


operations, freeing up the latter while giving passengers a better welcome to the city. The plan also envisages


redevelopment of the inner harbour areas. They are shallow draſt and not very useful for modern commercial shipping but the City Council is keen to boost the housing stock in the inner areas of Belfast; owing to its recent history, it suffered a greater decantation of its population to the suburbs than most other UK cities and the plan is to try and reverse this and take some of the pressure off the local commuter transport system. At the time of writing, the


outcome of the Brexit negotiations was far from clear. Belfast is in a slightly unusual position compared with some other UK ports in that very little of its regular liner traffic is to or from the EU. The feeder ro ro traffic is mostly deepsea while the ro ro services are all intra-UK.


surveillance. It might mean trucks only being allowed to use designated routes. Also, as the plan was to have the designated areas away from the actual border, it might mean vehicles having to travel many miles off the motorway and trunk road system, adding to local pollution and congestion. Leheny says no one is certain


that any such system could be built within a year – assuming that is the length of any transition period aſter Brexit - the UK government’s track record in driving through major, complex IT projects is not reassuring. In fact, there isn’t much confidence locally that HMRC will be able to beef up its existing ageing Chief system to cope with the influx. Plans for the border also take


little account of the unique nature of the region. There are already an estimated 90 gangs in the border areas engaged in lucrative business such as removing the dye from ‘red’ diesel and selling it on as road fuel or importing bulk loads of very cheap East European washing powder and stuffing into convincing fake packaging bearing the names of well-known manufacturers. Many of these people are no doubt rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a customs border and 40-60% tariff differentials to exploit. The estimated profit on a single truckload of beef is around £150,000. True, the current plans, which


would create a common area between Northern Ireland and Ireland as far as food standards are concerned Northern Ireland would remove the need for sanitary


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It remains to be seen whether a customs border is drawn down the middle of the Irish Sea, but the CNS community system should be well able to cope with any extra clearance work, should it arise. Another unknown, though a


very long term one, are suggestions that a bridge might one day be built between Scotland and Northern Ireland, replicating the present- day Belfast-Cairnryan route. Most commentators suggest that while it may be technically feasible, it’s by no means clear how it could be financed. The Channel Tunnel, with a much larger potential market and, probably, a lower construction cost, struggled financially in its early years although its value to the UK and French economy is immeasurable. It’s certainly not something


that Belfast harbour is taking into account in even its longest-term planning, says McClements.


and phytosanitary (SPS) checks - but any fiscal would be an equal impediment to trade, says Leheny. It also means that companies


exporting from Northern Ireland to the remaining EU countries might find themselves faced with the need to obtain Export Health Certificates. One major producer was told that they might need 35 officers on their site – and there are only about 160 in the whole of Northern Ireland. A big milk producer was told that they would have to ask for EHCs two days before production – at which time the milk would still be inside the cow. Nor is anyone in convinced that


the plan for the Northern Ireland assembly to vote on whether to continue the arrangement every four years would work. Even if the Stormont Assembly is reconvened at some point – and that is a very big ‘if’ at the moment – unless there was a very wide degree of consensus, any major political faction would be able to veto it. Meanwhile, FTA’s advice to


members in early October was the same as before plan for a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Find a customs clearance agent if you can but also consider other measures to mitigate the effect on your supply chain, for example, setting up entities in the Republic of Ireland. But the message that everything


could, potentially, grind to a halt aſter Brexit hasn’t fully sunk in, says Leheny. If goods cannot be customs-cleared due to a lack of agents, will hauliers be willing to carry them as they might be held liable for any unpaid VAT or duty.


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