By Peter Marsh
The maritime industry in London is closely following the
development of the container port of DP World London Gateway, and its strategy
to attract traffic from Britain's biggest port Felixstowe, only 50 miles away.
London Gateway is the first new port in the western hemisphere designed to meet
the needs of ultra-large container vessels (ULCV's). Everything about the
port's layout is super-sized, from the depth of water to the height of the
cranes. The arrival in 2013 of the five huge ZPMC cranes from Shanghai,
weighing in at 2,000 tons each, was a landmark event that was given full
coverage by the city's media.
At a height of 138 meters (453 feet), they are claimed to be the
"world's largest quay cranes," and would tower over the Super-Post
Panamax cranes in Tacoma, Seattle and Vancouver BC that stand around 270 feet
high. They are the first in the UK to be able to lift four containers at once –
designed to serve the next generation of ULCV's – potentially bigger than the
Maersk triple E's that are more than 400 meters long and carry 18,000 TEUs
stacked up to 23 boxes wide. "The size of the cranes future-proofs the
port, allowing London Gateway to handle the next generation of ultra large
container ships," stated Tim Halhead, the port's operations director.
These huge ships are too big for any port in North America, so
are confined to the Asia-Europe run, and they are creating a ripple effect in
the UK, Netherlands and Germany to provide ever-bigger port infrastructure.
This includes deeper channels, longer berths, larger container yards and more
machinery, with a total cost more than $13 billion according to one analyst. DP
World (Dubai Ports) inherited the London Gateway site when it took over P&O
Ports in 2005, and has invested more than $2 billion to date.
The cranes are just the tip of the iceberg for London Gateway –
part of the long-term plan to create a 21st century terminal on the former
Shell Haven oil refinery 25 miles from central London. The project began with
the dredging of 100 km of estuary in 2010, when 150 WWII bombs were recovered
and more than a dozen shipwrecks surveyed.
The entire dock area was reclaimed from the sea using dredge
spoils, then the cranes were installed on a new quay wall 2.7 kilometers in
length, with foundations that are 150 feet deep. There are also 40 fully-automated
stacking cranes, creating Britain's first fully-automated container-stacking
terminal. However, Felixstowe – owned by Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa – has
not been idle. It added a $500 million extension in 2011, giving it three
berths for ULCVs and raising capacity to about 4.5 million TEU. The port
handled more than 40 percent of UK container traffic last year, including the
biggest Triple-E Maersk ships.
The first scheduled service to switch to London Gateway's single
operating berth was the MOL Caledon early in November.Caledon is
a 58,000-ton container carrier that carries fruit and wine from South Africa,
and had previously unloaded in the small port of Tilbury, a few miles upstream.
The first shot in the duel with Felixstowe came around Christmas, when a storm
in the North Sea forced it to briefly close to shipping. Two feeder ships and
Maersk's 5,500-TEU Nedlloyd Drake, followed by the 8,452-TEU
Maersk Seville were diverted to London Gateway, which is protected from rough
weather in the North Sea.
In the New Year, another South African service, run by MSC,
ordered the MSC Rita to London Gateway. It appears that
shipping lines stand to benefit from the fierce competition between these two
major ports only 50 miles apart.
