January 30, 2014 [Platts] - The Port of Amsterdam has announced plans to invest Eur100 million over the next 10 years in terminal expansion projects to adapt to emerging shipping trends in ARA that are increasingly seeing the arrival of larger vessels with deeper draft requirements.
Speaking at the Platts European Oil Storage conference in Amsterdam, Lex De Ridder, cluster energy manager of the Port of Amsterdam said “We are going to see ship sizes grow, particularly with imports of diesel in bigger ships. We planned 6-7 years ago to deepen the draft of our port.”
“We expect Aframax and Suezmax size vessels, which is more than Amsterdam can handle. We are talking with several terminals…We foresee a new lock in 2019, and new lightering port before the lock in 2018. In the next 10-12 years we expect tonnage capacity expansion of 40-50 million,” he said.
Xavier Vanrolleghem, commercial manager of the Port of Antwerp, also identified the trend in larger clean product vessel sizes as a first order consideration for expansion proposals at the port of Antwerp. “We can accommodate 15-16 meter draft vessel at a push, [we] could pull in LR1 and LR2 size vessels. The real focus is on Middle Distillates, typically 100,000 to 120,000 tonne vessels are 15 m drafts. The number of these vessels has grown significantly,” he said.
