ROTTERDAM terminal operators are wooing at least two major Far Eastern shipping lines to operate and manage dedicated terminals at its berths. Europe Combined Terminals (ECT) executive board chairman Wouter den Dulk said: ''We are at the moment discussing with major customers the idea of operating dedicated terminals and some of them are interested to work with this setup with us.'' He admitted that there were at least two parties in the Far East that had expressed interest. ''They will come in either as a company or as a combined consortium,'' he said. Director of ECT's Delta Container Division Joan Rijsenbrij said ECT would expand to meet some of the needs for dedicated terminals by major shipping lines operating the Far East and North Atlantic trades. ''There was interest by the lines for dedicated terminals for carrying between 300,000 and 400,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units),'' he said. ECT would plan the dedicated terminals to cater for the volume of containers that customers would bring in, he added. ''Our own investment in that plan will be about US$50 million for the infrastructure, cranes and other equipment,'' Mr den Dulk said. The dredging and quay wall investment would be made by the Rotterdam authorities, he said. When the eight terminals were completed under the plan in 2008, they would have a combined three million TEU capacity. Piling work is to start in September and the quay wall is scheduled for completion by mid-1995. Mr Rijsenbrij said he expected the trade between the Far East and Europe to grow by more than 10 per cent this year compared with last year, despite the recession in Europe. The trade, which is one of the most profitable to Western Europe, was expected to grow at about the same rate as Hongkong, he said. ''This region together with Japan is one of the west's most import trade areas from Far East, including the booming business from China,'' Mr Rijsenbrij said. He said the port of Rotterdam handled 40 per cent of western Europe's trade and out of which 75 per cent was covered by ECT. ECT did not have much of the breakdown of the cargo destinations for security reasons, he said. Sea-Land had a 20-year contract to ECT to operate its own dedicated facility at the Delta terminal. The facility, which began operations on January 1, has a maximum capacity of 850,000 TEUs. Sea-Land, P & O Containers, Nedlloyd and Orient Overseas Container Line were using Rotterdam port servicing the North Atlantic trade. The Sea-Land facility cost US$270 million, including building the quay wall and dredging. Mr Rijsenbrij said Rotterdam port, the world's third largest container port, was served by three major terminals which handled 75 per cent of the country's container handling activities. Last year they handled 4.1 million TEUs. However, Rotterdam port, which handled 290 million tonnes of cargo throughput, still holds the title as world's largest port in terms of tonnage throughput. The majority of its throughput being crude oil and liquid chemicals.
