Don\u2019t talk Hamburg down, warned Senator Frank Horch when the port\u2019s 2015 figures were released earlier this year. \u201cAnybody familiar with the port business will realise that the Port of Hamburg\u2019s success cannot be measured solely in teu. Its success is composed of many elements,\u201d said Mr Horch. \u201cWhat makes the Port of Hamburg strong is its character as a universal port. The Port of Hamburg is actually one of the largest and most varied industrial zones in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was responding to figures that showed Hamburg\u2019s throughput fell by 5.4% last year, to 137.8m tonnes, including a 9.3% fall in containers to 8.8m teu.<\/p>\n
Axel Mattern, executive board member at Port of Hamburg Marketing, says: \u201cWe have a very big proportion of transhipment cargo in Hamburg and of course suffered dramatically due to the Russian crisis and due to the slight dropdown of Chinese cargo.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Hamburg is it always the case that we calculate transhipment twice \u2013 i.e. coming in from China and going out again. Of the losses, almost 100% came from transhipment and we had no losses on the hinterland side.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course transhipment is very nice for statistics, counting double, but the interesting cargo for us is the cargo which is staying in Hamburg and going into the hinterland. We are confident that we are on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n
In non-containerised sectors, bulk cargoes were up 5.8% to 45.5m tonnes, including a 27% increase in coal imports to 7.7m tonnes and 29% increase in grain exports at 4.2m tonnes.<\/p>\n
Hinterland focus<\/strong><\/p>\n Across all cargoes, Hamburg is concentrating on hinterland connectivity, says Mr Mattern. Rail now exceeds trucking as the most important mode of transport to and from the port, taking a 45.3% share of the modal split. \u201cWe are very well connected by rail into the main market but we are working to optimise it further. We are active in a lot of small projects around infrastructure, and trying to optimise rail track routes in order to get more cargo on to rail.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamburg\u2019s second largest market is North Rhine-Westphalia, \u2018which you would think is a typical market for Rotterdam\/Antwerp\u201d, says Mr Mattern. The port is working closely with Deutsche Bahn to upgrade rail connections to this region, with the potential to shift 180,000 teu a year from road to rail.<\/p>\n On the east side, 75% of cargo going into the hinterland is already on rail. \u201cWe are very active on increasing river barging to the east via the Elbe,\u201d he says. \u201cSo there is a lot of potential there as well.<\/p>\n \u201cTerminal operators are upgrading their facilities, as they have to, due to the development of ship sizes but hinterland connections are the biggest headache and the main focus for the whole port community. That\u2019s particularly in view of the large ships where you might get 10,000 teu-11,000 teu on one ship call. That is causing a lot of transportation issues and challenges. But we are deeply confident that hinterland connectivity is the solution for the future of the port.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the long-awaited dredging of the Elbe is now tantalising close to reality, with a final court decision expected by the end of this year or early 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are 99% confident the decision will be positive,\u201d says Mr Mattern. \u201cWe certainly need this deepening. Not in order to get big ships in \u2013 that is possible now \u2013 but the question is the number of big ships and flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2015, the number of ultra-large containerships calling into Hamburg increased by 27.6% to 647.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the present situation, the big ships are not allowed to pass each other on the river, so when one is coming inward, a ship heading outwards has to wait. Deepening of the channel \u2013 and widening, which is even more important \u2013 will allow ships to pass each other. This is not only for containerships but also for bulk carriers and others.\u201d<\/p>\n Dredging of the channel would also allow ultra-large containerships to carry up to 1,800 more loaded containers than at present.<\/p>\n Assuming the dredging is approved, a three-month consultation period would follow, prior to work starting. The deepening would take six months and the creation of \u2018passing boxes\u2019 would take another year. But the effect of a \u2018yes\u2019 decision would be instant, says Mr Mattern: \u201cIf they decide yes, we will have some positive psychology.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lower container volumes mask the bigger picture of growth at Hamburg, explains Felicity Landon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-4511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-container-cargo-handling"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4511"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=4511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}