[ New Container Terminal Opened in Antwerp ]

On 13th June 1997 Prince Philip officially opened the brand new North
Sea Terminal in Antwerp. The ceremony coincided with the arrival of th
e “NYK Altair”(4,743TEU), the largest ship ever to dock at Antwerp.
The new container terminal lies on the right bank of the Scheldt, nort
h of the Zandvliet and Berendrecht locks. Since starting operations o
n the 10th of January of this year, the terminal has already received
101 seagoing ships and handled 70,000 maritime containers. The contain
er terminal is operated by a joint venture of Noord Natie, one of Antw
erp’s leading goods handlers, and Belgian Railways. The former has a
two-thirds holding in the venture, with the railways taking the remain
ing third. The installations have been designed to handle 600,000 cont
ainers a year and will at first occupy an area of 55 ha.
One of the great strengths of the new terminal is its speed. So far av
erage crane handling speeds per ship and per crane have proved to be 3
5 containers an hour, while berth productivity per ship is about 100 c
ontainers an hour. These high handling rates are largely due to the te
rminal’s four ultra modern cranes, each with a reach of 18 containers
. These figures are based on the real experience of the start-up phase
and even better figures can be expected in the future. Apart from thi
s the riverside location and direct connections to Europe’s main high
ways, via the Noordland bridge, the waterways(a 350m barge berth), and
the railways also ensure considerable savings in time.
The success of the first five months of operating the North Sea Termin
al must be seen in the context of the immense growth of Antwerp’s con
tainer trade. Since 1994, Antwerp has been the fastest growing of all
Europe’s container ports. In just three years containerized general c
argo handling operations have grown by 45% and Antwerp has seen itself
move up the world rankings from 11th to 9th largest container port.