Tynes expansion pledge drives sustainability

Key to the port’s status as a trust port is its commitment to reinvesting all profits back into the River Tyne, 22 miles of which is looked after by the port. Over £120m was ploughed into maintenance and improvement work from 2006-2016, while effort around the port’s own development is being directed towards automation and greening operations.

In July, engineering company Spencer Group will conclude building work on the port’s £13m investment in its single biggest automation project, a second wood pellet terminal to service the 420MW Lynemouth Power Station on the North East coast of the UK. The terminal project to support electricity production began in 2017 and once finished will be able to move up to 1.8m tonnes of wood pellet biomass a year to the station, converted from coal-fired to biomass power generation at the end of 2017.

Rapid development

The new facility is designed to manage the handling, storage and rail-loading of wood pellets. “The pellets will be transported via two fully automated hoppers to one of three 36 metre high silos, each able to store 25,000 tonnes,” explains Nolan Gray, the port’s business development director. “The pellets will then be discharged from the silos via 1.3 kilometres of enclosed conveyors to the rail loading facility to transport the material to the power station,” he adds.

In 2017, the port also spent £25m on extending its main operating quay by 125 metres. Riverside Quay is enabling the port to better handle growing cargo volumes, including the wood pellet imports used by the power station. The need for the development is clear from the double-digit increase in container line volumes at the port in the last two years, and this has been helped by shipping consolidation and alliances, says Mr Gray.

The main challenge the port now faces is adapting to changing commodity flows. “At the moment we handle a lot of biomass but that will only last for a certain amount of time, so the real challenge is about identifying what the new commodity flows will be and helping facilitate those businesses on a global platform.” Now, the port is focusing on acquiring land for and developing two enterprise zone sites, one to be used for advanced manufacturing and one a subsea hub.

Road to rail

The port took part in Transport for the North’s (TfN) research into a potential £100m investment in the Transpennine route to modernise it and improve freight capacity. Tyne is also one of a group of northern England-based ports involved in TfN’s bid to improve combined sea, road and rail freight strategy. “We already work very hard to keep freight off the road,” stresses Mr Gray, but referring to government strategy he adds, “I think more can be done.”

With three rail terminals onsite, rail freight plays a major role in the port’s goods movement, transporting over 1m tonnes of wood pellet a year. It currently operates 60 track units as part of its logistics fleet and over the last year has replaced 50 of these with more fuel-efficient versions, while using, according to Mr Gray, the “most efficient diesel engines that we can get at the moment”. Tyne’s move towards low emissions technology is further demonstrated by its first investments in electric machines. Its first fully electric crane is now in use, while the rest of its cranes have the ability to be diesel or electric. Additionally, it has five electric charging points onsite with plans for more.

Plans going forward include converting lighting to LED and removing as much paper as possible from operations, while continuing to invest in the River Tyne. Mr Gray says: “20-30 years ago you wouldn’t have got salmon in the Tyne, but now it is one of the top salmon fishing rivers in the country. For ourselves always giving back to the river is important. Sustainability really is at our heart and having an environmental conscious is quite key to what we do and what we’re looking ahead at.”