News / Major rail hub, ro-ro terminal and cross-docking facility planned for North Sea Port

Belgian groupage operator and freight forwarder Transuniverse Forwarding has launched a project with Turkish multimodal operator Ekol Logistics to build a 40ha multimodal facility at the North Sea Port.

The port is a stretch of 60km of cargo handling facilities along the river Scheldt, combining The Netherlands’ Zeeland Seaports and the Belgian port of Ghent. The two port authorities completed the cross-border merger at the beginning of 2018.

Ekol and Transuniverse, which partner to provide hubs in Barcelona and Ghent for joint north-south road haulage services, have taken an option on a 20ha site in the Kluizendok area of Ghent, and plan to build a rail terminal to serve Ekol’s growing portfolio of pan-European intermodal services and be developed into a hub to connect to shipping services to the UK.

Ekol already operates a number of train connections, including a trunk route between Cologne and Trieste, where it links up to Mediterranean ro-ro services.

“We want to expand this traffic to other destinations in Europe,” said chairman Ahmet Musul.

“North Sea Port will become a hub for intermodal rail services between Spain, Greece and the Maghreb countries on the one hand, and the United Kingdom and, later, Scandinavia on the other.

“This initiative will be used for both groups’ intermodal traffic, but the terminal will also be open to other companies,” he added.

The two companies also plan to build a 10ha cross-docking operation and a greenfield 10ha ro-ro terminal in preparation for the expected post-Brexit diversification of cross-Channel ro-ro shipping services.

Frank Adins (pictured above, left), chairman of Transuniverse Forwarding, explained: “Brexit is expected to cause major congestion in the Channel ports. This creates opportunities to organise transport by ship from Ghent to more northerly UK ports, in combination with rail connections to and from the European hinterland.”

He added that the operation of the ro-ro facility would be subcontracted to a terminal operator, with “negotiations already under way”.

The 20,000sq metre cross-docking facility for groupage operations will be in addition to Transuniverse’s existing 8,000sq metre facility at Wondelgem, in Ghent.

The company said “traffic flows have been growing strongly for several years, so the existing installations have become absolutely insufficient”.

Today Transuniverse handles more than 100 trucks and intermodal containers a week in Wondelgem, traffic that is expected to double within five years after the new infrastructure is completed.

Ekol is expected to run 20 trains a week through the new rail terminal and is forecast to handle around 2m tonnes of goods a year.

North Sea Port chief executive Daan Schalck (pictured above, right) said the port’s ambition was to develop Kluizendok area as a multimodal logistics hub.

“Moreover, North Sea Port encourages companies to make increasing use of sustainable modes of transport, such as transport by rail or water. We expect this development will be an important contribution to this strategy,” he added.