MSC almost one million TEU via Rotterdam

Shipping company MSC achieved throughput of almost one million TEU via Rotterdam in 2011, confirmed director Theo van Ravesteijn of MSC Nederland. The volume in Rotterdam last year thus exceeded that of 2010 by an estimated factor of seven. Last year two MSC ships entered the port every week, while this year it was fourteen per week.

This explosive growth occurred, because MSC, the second largest container carrier in the world, acquired its ‘own’ transshipment capacity this year at ECT's Delta Terminal on the Maasvlakte. MSC and ECT set up a joint operating company for the so-called Delta Dedicated North terminal, comprising almost one third of the total capacity of eight million TEU. This joint venture hires that capacity from ECT.

Van Ravesteijn does not want to give precise figures, but does say that the total volume ‘goes quite a way towards one million’. It is difficult to state precise figures, according to him, partly because the calculation method of MSC differs from that of the Port of Rotterdam Authority, which this week published throughput figures of 11.9 million TEU for last year, an increase of 6%.

The capacity shortage of MSC in Antwerp also played into the hands of Rotterdam. In Antwerp the shipping company uses the Home Terminal at the Delwaidedok, a 50/50 joint venture of MSC and PSA International. For quite a while it has been running at its maximum capacity of 4.5 million TEU per year and cannot expand further. < Korea Shipping Gazette >