RUMOURS are rife that APM Terminals will sell its straddle carrier-operated facility at Rotterdam's Maasvlakte I
RUMOURS are rife that APM Terminals will sell its straddle carrier-operated facility at Rotterdam's Maasvlakte I. Speculation about a sale comes after last week's staff meeting, considering that it was the only item on the agenda. There is even talk of a potential buyer emerging, although this has been denied by APMT-Rotterdam's local spokesman, reported the UK's WorldCargo News.
APMT-R currently handles 2.5 million TEU per annum and it has an annual container handling capacity of 3.25 million TEU. The 100-hectare facility is equipped with 13 ship-to-shore cranes, five of which are 23-wide, and one barge-to-shore crane along 1,600 metres of linear quay wall. The container yard has 2,250 plugs for refrigerated boxes.
The straddle carrier-direct terminal, with 600 staff, is located at the foot of the delta peninsula, where Hutchison Ports ECT Rotterdam opened its first Maasvlakte-based terminal in the early 1980s, the Delta Multi User (DMU) on the Europahaven. The three other container terminals on the delta peninsula are ECT's DDN, DDE and DDW (Delta Dedicated North, East and West).
One Rotterdam port figure has suggested that ECT would be the most logical candidate to purchase APMT-R.
The APMT-R site came into APMT's hands in 1999, and the concession officially expired in 2015. It is anticipated that phase two of APMT's automated terminal at Maasvlakte-2 could be fully operational by 2025.
ECT abandoned straddle carrier-direct operations run when it sold DMU to APMT two decades ago and, moreover, it has room for growth at its Euromax terminal. At the same time, more of its business for alliances whose members are shareholders of either APMT Maasvlakte II or Rotterdam World Gateway (RWG) will gradually leave ECT once second phases of the two MV-2 terminals are developed.
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