New Waterborne Barge Service Cuts Road Haulage Emissions

UK – How history repeats itself. A century or so ago the middle stretches of the River Thames were home to dozens of wharves serviced by a fleet of countless barges carrying commodities of every type. Now with a universal call for sustainability and lower emissions, water borne freight is again making an overdue comeback.

The latest addition to this revival is the twice-daily coastal barge operation to deliver thousands of tonnes of oil seed rape from the Port of Tilbury grain terminal along the River Thames to ADM Erith’s processing facility. Martin Farrow, General Manager at ADM in Erith commented:

“We’re delighted to work together with the port of Tilbury to support our environmental efforts and optimise our supply chain. It also comes at a great time now that our Erith plant is fully operational again.”

The transport mode reduces truck journeys and ensures a greener supply chain for both businesses. The coastal vessel the Polla Rose takes the cargo from Tilbury twice a day, Monday to Friday, with each trip moving 500 tonnes of oil rape seed at a time.

Each round trip is managed by HCH Marine and takes around seven hours and each day this operation removes 36 truck journeys from the already congested roads, with Nick Howard, Managing Director of HCH Marine saying his company was very happy to have the support of both ADM and the Port of Tilbury and emphasising that together the trio are looking forward to keeping river freight alive and doing their bit to keep road congestion down.

For its part the Port of Tilbury says it aims to provide a greener supply chain for customers by using more water-borne freight solutions, with Gary Vincent, Asset Manager at the Port of Tilbury saying:

“We are very pleased with this new coastal service for ADM Erith. Using the Polla Rose for this cargo movement has been a success both operationally and as a greener supply chain solution for our customer.”