The development of a second Benelux hub port – Rotterdam is the other – is extremely important,says Paul Swaak,chief operating officer of Samskip Multimodal Container Logistics. “Our business continues to expand and we knew that unlike most major European ports, Zeebrugge had spare capacity and room to grow as demand warranted.”

The Port of Zeebrugee handled a total of 39.3m tonnes last year, an increase of 13.6%. With container volumes increasing by 10% year-onyear, the port went ahead with a deepening of its access channel last year. This involved the deepening of the 9 km channel, access to the container terminals in the outer port and the P. Vandamme lock by one metre. The work will allow the port to handle container vessels with 14.5 metres draught at any state of the tide.