The new terminal being built in Rotterdam primarily for ThyssenKrupp Steel's (TKS) Brazilian slab imports has sustained some delay. Works have had to be suspended to protect nesting seabirds.
"At first I thought that it was a joke, and a poor one, too," said Piet Govers, CEO of TKS's chosen terminal operator, C Steinweg Handelsveem. "But I checked it with Port of Rotterdam director Hans Smits; he assured me that this is really happening."
As previously reported (WorldCargo News, May 2007, p35 and May 2008, p46), the terminal is being built on reclaimed land in the Mississippi dock on the Maasvlakte with TKS as the launch customer.
The 12-hectare terminal (out of 40-ha being reclaimed) will have 500m of the total 1500m of new quay wall. It will handle the 2.1 Mtpa of steel slabs that TKS will import into Germany from the new joint TKS/CVRD steel works in Itaqui, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, that is scheduled to start production in April 2009.
"We will still be able to accommodate this cargo from the start, as we don't expect the first ship to arrive before the summer [of 2009]," Govers added. "Otherwise I would have had considerably more to say about the matter, for sure."
Govers thinks that the delay will mainly affect the quay wall and quayside construction works, but he is confident that Steinweg's subcontractors for the paving and crane tracks will be able to start work on schedule towards the end of this year. He estimates that the overall terminal will probably be completed some three months late, but reiterates that the TKS slab logistics will not be affected by such a delay.
However, the pace of steel traffic currently being handled at Steinweg's other Rotterdam terminals may be affected, Govers acknowledged. This involves mainly exports out of Europe and the volume is likely to equal the minimum 2.1 Mtpa of Brazilian slab imports. "I think that we'll break the four million tonne barrier by the end of 2010," he noted.
The delay stems from the fact that seagulls had already begun hatching at the site - still a stretch of deep water one year before - when quay wall construction was about to be started. Dutch law states that in such cases breeding birds must not be disturbed - a case of squatters' rights, as it were.
If, on the other hand, the birds start hatching when works are already in progress, the works may proceed. It's a who came first principle. "The contractors simply failed to make enough noise to scare the birds off during the weeks prior to the start of their operations," one port insider remarked. |
