July 19, 2013 [Property Magazine] - Liquid bulk in particular showed strong growth, especially petroleum derivatives. “In combination with the investments recently announced, these half-year figures lead us to be cautiously optimistic for the first semester," declared Port Authority CEO Eddy Bruyninckx.
Liquid bulk was up by 33.1% to 29,248,986 tonnes. The volumes of crude oil and oil derivatives in particular sent the figures soaring.
The rise is largely due to the new Sea Tank Terminal 510 and Independent Belgian Refinery, which were started up again after Gunvor acquired them and made heavy investments. But most of the other oil product terminals also noted sharp increases.
The Antwerp oil and chemical sector has benefited from a steady stream of investments in recent years. In the tank storage sector companies such as Oiltanking Stolthaven Antwerp, Sea Tank Terminal: (Quay 316-318), (Quay 254-316), (Quay 405-415), ATPC, LBC Cepsa Tank Terminal Antwerpen, Vopak: Vopak Eurotank, Vopak Terminal ACS, Vopak Terminal Linkeroever, ADPO Antwerp, NoordNatie Odfjell Terminal and ITC Rubis Terminal Antwerpen have invested heavily in storage capacity for oil products, chemicals and gases.
The growth is therefore largely due to the continuing investments in the port of Antwerp. Gunvor, ExxonMobil, Lanxess, BASF, FRX Polymers, Ineos Oxide and Evonik Degussa and others besides have been investing heavily in their Antwerp sites.
During the past ten years the volume of shipping freight for tank storage companies has expanded by 151%, while during the same period the number of tank storage terminals has risen by 40%, to 15 in all.
The total tank storage capacity has more than doubled, to 6.3 million m³. Furthermore various tank storage companies are making large investments that will drive the capacity still higher.
Production companies have also been investing steadily in their Antwerp sites.
In addition to Gunvor, Lanxess, BASF, Ineos Oxide, FRX Polymers and Evonik Degussa, which are all currently investing in Antwerp, Total, Ferro, Kuwait Petroleum International and Praxair have recently announced large investment projects.
Moreover ExxonMobil among others has investment projects in the planning stage.
The many planned investments will significantly boost this capacity even more, further strengthening the position that Antwerp already holds as the largest integrated petrochemical cluster in Europe.
The added value contributed by transhipment and handling of liquid bulk has also increased enormously in recent years, thanks to the introduction of highly specialised tank technology that has served as the basis for starting up numerous semi-industrial processes.
The future prospects too are very promising: Total, Kuwait Petroleum International and Praxair, for example, have recently announced large investment projects in Antwerp.
