Dizzying demands

“The biggest challenge we face today is coping with expected growth”, says Klaus- Dieter Peters,head of Hamburg’s main port operator Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA).To do that,he says,the capacity and performance of the port’s entire logistical network, including sea and hinterland links, needs to be doubled.

All the major issues currently facing Germany’s biggest seaport – container terminal expansion, Elbe deepening for bigger ship access, port rail improvement and hinterland corridors – come back in one way or another to the point Mr Peters makes.

They are part of a costly, dual-track, ‘go-it-alone’ strategy adopted by Hamburg after it chose not to be part of the new deep-water JadeWeserPort in Wilhelmshaven. Instead, it is developing its own bigship facilities and is now pushing ahead with the strategic access and support features they need.

That’s because officials are now tipping 140m-142m tonnes handling this year and an increase in containers to 9.5m teu-9.6m teu. It follows a record 2006 in which the port handled 135m tonnes, but just missed the 9m teu mark.Ports Senator Gunnar Uldall,looking further ahead, predicts 220m tonnes and more than 18m teu by 2015.

The cost, he has just revealed, will be significantly more than was first mooted – not €1.5bn ($2bn), but Box bonanza: Altenwerder is one of Hamburg’s many growth hubs €2.5bn ($3.4bn) – and that sum is what the city itself has to find for infrastructure investment up to 2015. It does not include further billions being invested by private port operating companies, the Hamburg Port Authority and the German Government.

It is within this cost context that the controversial sale of shares in city-owned HHLA is relevant. Mr Uldall says only about €1.1bn ($1.5bn) of the €2.5bn ($3.4bn) needed for expansion was already secured and that without the remaining €1.4m ($1.9bn) from the sale of HHLA shares, there would be no expansion.

That sum now appears doubtful after the city’s surprise cave-in to union demands.It agreed to put 30% of the shares on the stock market instead of selling up to 49.9% of HHLA privately – a process that had attracted offers up to €1.6bn and had reached a point where only two bidders were left.

The stock market decision appears to have dismayed many who say not nearly enough money can now be raised for port expansion and that Hamburg will have to borrow again. Whatever price the shares realise, however, sceptics note there is now no guarantee investors will be sympathetic to HHLA.

Mr Uldall says the foundation for coping in the future will be the deepening of the Elbe by one metre giving ships of up to about 12,000 teu and 14.5 m draught tidedependent access to the port. He is pushing for early approval and for completion of deepening, which will cost about €330m ($443m), by 2009. “Shipping companies world wide expect this,”he says.

Work is, meanwhile, already underway on terminal expansion. Due for completion this year is the upgrade of the city’s latest, high-tech Altenwerder Container Terminal from 2.7m teu to 3m teu. Other main projects include the western extension of the private Eurogate Container Terminal, which will double handling from 2.8m teu to 6m teu. Latest predictions are that if work moves fast, capacity of 4m teu could be available there as early as 2009.

Meanwhile, capacity at HHLA’s Burchardkai Container Terminal is being doubled from 2.6m teu to 5.2m teu up to 2012. HHLA’s Tollerort Terminal is also being expanded from 2.5m teu to 3.6m teu up to 2014.Finally, bids for a brand new container terminal in Hamburg’s Freihafen, for 3.5m teu, will be invited mid 2009.

Finally,the Port of Hamburg has launched a study into what have been described as inadequate and already over-taxed hinterland transport routes. Wolfgang Hurtienne, chief planner at the Hamburg Port Authority, says, perhaps surprisingly: “We just can’t tell from the available statistics how many containers are being moved,by which carriers and on which routes.”