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News / Congestion at Rotterdam and Antwerp: barge and feeder operators hardest hit

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Barge operators are suffering delays of between three and four days at some Antwerp and Rotterdam container terminals.

And feeder lines complain of lengthening waits for their vessels to be handled at ECT facilities in Rotterdam.

In a customer notice last week, Duisburg-headquartered Contargo said its barges ...

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  • Jerry McCormick

    March 18, 2015 at 3:17 pm

    The main problem is the un-willingness of the ECT-management to tackle the issue hands on. Obvioulsy the former CEO Jan Westerhoud has given in his campaign against RGW and APMT2 a lot of fuel to unions and as ECT can only be certain that a lot of their customers will leave to the new terminals the investments in equipment and manpower are almost zero. They cut costs to a level where their terminals will lose all their business. Too late to wake up now ! Good luck for their competitors.

  • Andy Lane

    March 19, 2015 at 8:23 am

    Some interesting statement and observations here.

    First of all, 6% growth can not be considered as either strong or a surprise.

    In 2014, Rotterdam as a port produced an average quay side through-put of 164,000 TEU/QC. Why is that significant and what does it mean?

    Well, 365 days x 24 hours makes 8,760 hours per QC of availability. If those cranes are producing on average 25 MPH when they are deployed and working, then they are deployed only 47% of all possible hours.

    164,000 / ((365*24)*47%) / 1.6 (TEU Factor) = 25

    A crane working at 25 MPH when deployed is running at about 71% efficiency – compared to a potential of a modest 35.

    So Rotterdam is 47% utilised and operating at 71% – not sure how “congestion” can exist in practice. What am I missing?

  • Mike Wackett

    March 19, 2015 at 10:05 am

    Thanks Jerry and you make some good points Andy.
    Agree that we are missing something here as to the real cause of the congestion @ ECT.
    But surprised that Contargo’s barges are also experiencing significant delays at Antwerp, but feeders apparently not suffering.
    Still looking for a response from the port authority.

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