IRELAND\\\
There’s no escaping the fact that Ireland is a small shipping market. The combined throughput of all southern Ireland’s container ports is no more than about 1.5m teu a year, which would do no more than fi ll a few quays in Rotterdam. And while traffi c has been growing strongly, it is from quite a small base. One port’s gain is liable to be another’s loss, and a port that does well in one year may fi nd itself retrenching in the next; there are only so many boxes and ships to go round. As Frank Ronan, chief executive
at the port of Waterford says, “it’s a bit of a Lanigan’s Ball situation”, with yesterday’s gains largely outweighed by today’s losses, or vice-versa. Waterford’s container traffi c though
is growing reasonably
strongly, at 5-10% and ahead of the national average, he says. The port’s long-standing customer is the twice-weekly DFDS/Samskip service to and from Rotterdam, which also serves Dublin and Cork. In mid-2019, Waterford also
added a regular BG Line service to Rotterdam, primarily to feed Maersk Line vessels at the Dutch hub and expected to appeal
Issue 1 2020 - FBJ Ireland
Waterford seeks more box business
especially to Irish agri-food exporters and also to customers shipping containers to/from Africa, Asia and the Americas via Rotterdam. In days past, Waterford was a
major Irish container hub, being the centre of operations for Bell Line before that operation’s demise. As well as regular container shipping services to and from Europe, there was also an extensive rail
system serving the whole
of Ireland. Present day annual container traffi c is a relatively modest 44,000teu compared with 173,000teu in 2008, although bulk business has held up well at around 1.7m tonnes a year. All the infrastructure still
exists, and one of Frank Ronan’s ambitions is to get a rail link reinstated. Post Bell Lines, there was a DFDS-chartered twice- weekly service between Waterford and Ballina in the west of Ireland, and there remains a regular Dublin/ Ballina link, but the Waterford link has since been axed and the port’s container terminals are train-less once again. “I think there is potential, and we
remain hopeful,” says Ronan. Bulk traffi cs through Waterford
Belfast welcomes Stena Edda
Stena Line’s latest ferry,
Stena Edda sailed into Belfast Harbour on 26 February ahead of final trials before going into service on the Liverpool route in the coming weeks. Welcomed by a flotilla
of boats, she took part in successful
berthing trials at
Belfast Harbour’s VT2 Terminal. A new access ramp has been specially built to accommodate
the ferry, which offers 40% more deck capacity and 30% higher fuel efficiency than current vessels on the route, including 3,100 lane metres of freight. Stena Edda is part of a nine-
figure investment by Stena Line in three new vessels and port upgrades, and will be the first of two new ferries that will run on the Belfast to Liverpool route.
remain strong, close to record levels, much of it inputs for the dairy industry. Powdered milk exports are the region’s main export, some, though by no means all of it passing through Waterford. Irish nutrition group Glanbia has a large factory in
the vicinity. Investment in the bulk side
of the operation including new warehousing and a new crane has continued through 2019. Waterford has, for the fi rst time,
produced a masterplan which has generated quite a lot of interest locally, Ronan adds. It maps out how the port could develop over the next 25 years and is, he
suggests, “modest but practical”. Among other things, it envisages deepening and widening channels from the current 9m draſt to 9.5 or 10m, along with quay expansion, possibly in 2029 or 2037 depending on the growth scenario. However, as the plan itself notes,
the port “is currently operating well within its capacity” so there is no urgency about any of the plans for expansion,
7
desirable if ship sizes increase signifi cantly. The plan also notes that, just as
although raising
the port’s ability to handle larger vessels than at present might be
Waterford’s lo lo traffi c contracted sharply in the face of recession in Ireland, it has the potential to bounce back equally strongly, and it is essential to have contingency plans in place in case such a pick- up takes place. As Ronan says, “we are currently growing faster than the market, but I would like to see a step change in Waterford’s performance.”
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