Friday, March 10, 2017

Container Freight Trade Builds at Traditional Bulk Cargo Port

Intercontinental Feeder Services See Arrival of New Vessel
Shipping News Feature
UK – The Port of Immingham may claim the title of Britain's largest port in terms of tonnage, mainly due to the vast amount of bulk cargo passing through, meaning 55 million tonnes handled annually, but container freight also is building at one of the four Humber locations managed by Associated British Ports (ABP). Now box feeder specialists A2B has increased its presence with the addition of a newly chartered vessel.

ABP’s Immingham Container Terminal (ICT) recently welcomed the MS Vanquish which will increase A2B’s calls at the terminal from 9 to 11per week. ABP says this commitment to Immingham reflects the positive transformations and significant investment made at the terminal in the last 12 months to meet growing customer needs, and that plans are in place to invest more in the future. This should see improvements and expansion plans at ICT meaning that the capacity for handling containers through the terminal is expected to increase.

A2B operates trailer, container and shipping services for full and part loads from the Benelux countries and Germany to the UK on a daily basis with Immingham served direct from the Port of Moerdijk in the Netherlands. ICT facilitates a daily service by operating on a 24/7 basis and is equipped with three ship to shore gantry cranes, four rubber tyred gantry cranes and is supported by seven brand new Kilmar reach stackers, enabling short sea shipments to be discharged, loaded and out on the water once again within a matter of hours.

ICT has been focussing attention of late on improvements around the site such as enabling advanced electronic data collection, improving IT infrastructure, setting KPI’s and continually improving the haulier booking-in system and the arrival of the 320 TEU MS Vanquish was welcomed into the port of Immingham by ABP staff where a traditional port plaque handover ceremony took place between the Port Manager and the Chief Officer of the vessel. Mark Frith, Port Manager for Grimsby and Immingham said:

“The success of the Immingham Container Terminal is largely down to the staff that we have working there. We have recently recruited some exceptionally talented individuals to add to an already talented team whose key focus is on ensuring our customers are happy.”

Gerard de Groot, Managing Director of A2B-online Container B.V. said that the company has seen no decrease in trade following the Brexit announcement and, to the contrary, the company has witnessed a rise of nearly 12% compared to the previous year. Michael van Keulen, the company’s Operations Director remarked:

”The MS Vanquish will be deployed on our Immingham service initially and, depending on the growth of volume, we have spare capacity during the weekend so we could choose for an additional sailing into either London Thamesport or Teesport. The additional capacity is estimated around 50,000 TEU.”

Photo: Port Manager for Grimsby and Immingham, Mark Frith and Commercial Manager, Chris Vause welcome Chief Officer of the MS Vanquish into the Immingham Container Terminal (image courtesy of David Lee Photography Ltd / ABP)