Rotterdam barge terminal strategy pays environmental dividends

Located in Alphen aan den Rijn, the facility is positioned strategically close to the Heineken brewery at Zoeterwoude and its core business at present is handling export containers for the leading Dutch beer manufacturer that move through the port of Rotterdam to markets overseas, including the United States.

Since start up, Alpherium has experienced a rapid fast increase in export volumes. In the first week of operations it handled 100 teu, but by July 2011 the terminal was moving around 2000 teu of export containers every week. In the beginning the terminal was connected to the port of Rotterdam’s deep sea container terminals with a single weekly barge sailing; this has now increased to five sailings a day.

Alpherium has a dock area of around 10000m2, and can accommodate three barges simultaneously. Containers are handled by two gantry cranes spanning the dock, and these are supported by reach stackers and other handling hardware. The development of the terminal required an investment of around €15 million, by which with the Zuid Holland regional government also investeding around €50 million in associated road infrastructure and in the building construction of a new viaduct.

The terminal is operated by the Van Uden group, which has worked closely with Heineken for many years. Alpherium terminal manager, Ivo Hilhorst, says: “Heineken has benefited from a number of advantages in using the facility. The barge operated terminal enhances greater reliability within the supply chain by being so near to the brewery, for example. ButAlthough, in particular, due to the modal shift from road to water, the customer benefits from a reduction in CO2 emissions of over 30%.”

As Heineken has to road-haul containers only around 13km between the brewery and Alpherium, rather than more than 80km to the port, there is less risk of disruption to the supply chain, and a greater chance of ensuring a stable flow of containers between the production plant and the transportation network.

Harry Werkman, export manager, Heineken, says: “Our goods travel a shorter distance by road and this means there is less chance of traffic congestion and thus greater predictability. The reduction in CO2 emissions is important as more and more of our customers are asking about the carbon footprint of a bottle of beer."

Heineken exports around 80,000 teu of containers through the port of Rotterdam a year. Before the opening of Alpherium, most of this traffic would have moved by road to the port. Now, almost all of the containerised exports from the Zoeterwoude plant are channelled through Alpherium, substantially reducing the number of road journeys.

At present Alpherium’s main business is handling export container loads. But Van Uden is now switching its focus to expanding import volumes at the terminal, and matching these with Heineken’s export traffic. Potential customers in the surrounding area with incoming containers includinge large Dutch retailers such as Zeeman, Intertoys, Marskramer and Blokker.

“In an ideal world”, Mr Hilhorst explains, “imports will be barged to Alpherium and then trucked to a customer in the local area. From there the empty will be trucked to Heineken, or another export customer, and then brought back to Alpherium where it will be barged to the port.’

Alternatively, he adds, imports will be barged in to the terminal and trucked to the customer who will return the empty box to Alpherium where it will be stacked, ready for an instruction from the exporter. Then the same process will be repeated, with the loaded container moving to Alpherium for shipment by barge to the port of Rotterdam.

“The first scenario is ideal,” says Mr Hilhorst, “but it will not always be feasible as it requires a lot of planning. We expect the second scenario to will be the norm, but it will still generate big benefits as currently matching imports and exports can only be achieved by bringing an empty former import container back to a depot in the port. This involves more road transport miles, and so more money, and a greater environmental impact.”

In order to create the capacity required for Alpherium to become an import, as well as an export container handling facility, significant further investment is necessary now underway. Phase 2 of the terminal development is set to become operational by the end of this year, with an expansion of around 17,000m2 of space dedicated for use for import containers.

While Alpherium involves close collaboration between Van Uden and Heineken, there is a third key ‘partner’ in this venture - the Port of Rotterdam. The Port of Rotterdam purchased the 6.5 hectares parcel of land on which the inland barge terminal is situated and has leased it on a long term basis to Van Uden. The Port of Rotterdam is thus employing the same ‘landlord’ strategy that has proved successful in the development of deepseadeep sea and other terminals inside the port to facilitate the emergence of a network of inland barge terminals in the hinterland.

Indeed, the Port of Rotterdam is now stepping up its investment in other locations, using the same basic principle. The port authority is for example assuming a similar landlord role at an inland facility that is being expanded in Wanssum, close to the German border. The Port already owns the land at an existing barge connected terminal operated by Binnenlandse Container Terminal Nederland (BCTN), and is in the process of acquiring an adjacent plot to enable it to be doubled in size. In addition, the Port of Rotterdam has acquired the land needed for further facility, the so- called Container Transferium (CT), being developed at Alblasserdam, east of Rotterdam, on the River Noord, which will be operational by the end of 2012.

CT is a major development, which will also be operated by BCTN and involves an investment of around €38 million in land, infrastructure and superstructure works. The facility, due to open in late 2012, will be designed to handle around 200,000 teu a year and take around 180,000 truck journeys off the Rotterdam ring road. The expectation is that the Alblasserdam terminal, located around 50km from Maasvlakte, will operate in a similar way to the Alpherium, but will probably be more ‘multi-user’ in nature. Already a number of deepseadeep sea container terminal operators in the port have signed ‘letters of support’ to indicate their willingness to cooperate with the new terminal.

Donald Baan, Program Manager Inland Shipping, logistics, Port of Rotterdam, says: “We see our role as enabling the development of barge-connected inland terminals. We can secure the land and the necessary permissions, but let others handle the day-to-day operations.”

Other possible locations for barge- and/or railconnected intermodal terminals in Belgium and Germany, as well as the Netherlands, are also being studied by the port authority.

The message from the Port of Rotterdam is that intermodal road-barge transport is a good solution that meets the requirements not just of big shippers like Heineken but smaller exporters and importers as well.

In 2010, Rotterdam port handled 1.46 million teu of containers by barge, equivalent to 33% of all containers arriving and leaving the port from the hinterland. While this represents an increase from the 30.2% of traffic carried by barge in 2008, it still leaves the road sector’s share at 57%. The Port of Rotterdam aims to reduce the share commanded by road by encouraging a further shift to barge and railway over the coming years.