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Thus,
began wayporting. This is a simple process
of dropping on containers along the way
in wayports such as Jeddah, Suez, Malta,
Piraeus, Algeciras and Tangiers. There was
nothing new in this as it had always been
the way of getting Asian transshipments
to sub-Saharan West Africa and to the east
coast of South America. What made it more
important were the new and growing volumes
not only to North America, but to Africa
and South America too. These were no longer
slums of the global village. Everyone everywhere
was becoming more affluent and importing
more.
What
this does to Europe is to make the Med,
particularly the Muslim-free European side,
a busier place with more prospects than
ever.
In
efforts to countervail the dominance of
the Northern Range, one of the more ambitious
projects is being undertaken by Venice,
the famous city of canals at the northern
end of the Adriatic.
Engineering
and project management consultancy, Royal
HaskoningDHV, has delivered its master plan
for the new Venice container terminal, which
should deliver major efficiency and reduce
equipment costs saving the port millions
of euros.
This
is quite apart from the old Port of Venice,
close to the heart of the city, whose 22,000
TEU annual throughput is likely to be frozen
because of environmental rules protecting
a city which everyone everywhere recognises
as a cultural treasure.
The
key to the new Royal HaskoningDHV offshore
port project lies in an innovative logistics
concept comprising of cranes barges and
semi-submersible vessels which act as a
conveyor belt eliminating dwell time for
container transfers.
Looking
forward, Venice's new terminal would be
able to handle one million TEU which is
a significant portion of container volume
estimated for the Northern Adriatic Sea
by 2030. It should also help to foster the
integration of northern Adriatic ports into
the core European road and rail corridors.
These
northern ports are trending upwards. On
the western side of the Italian boot, the
port of Genoa has enjoyed a record year
for traffic in 2014 up 9.3 per cent to 2,172,944
TEU and further along the coast. The nearby
French Port of Marseille's 2014 container
traffic was up seven per cent year on year
to 1,174,000 TEU. Some 90 per cent went
through the two deepsea Fos 2XL terminals,
where volumes rose 10 per cent.
Not
only do these figures speak to the growing
prosperity of northern shores of the Mediterranean,
they also indicate a regeneration of activity
to match the greater traffic that is coming
through as the Med becomes a highway to
or from everywhere else in the world with
the possible exceptions of East Africa and
west coast South America. Meanwhile northern
range ports averaged five to seven per cent
growth in 2014, except for Hamburg which
went up 9.3 per cent.
Another
significant development is the rebirth of
the Marseille-Fos giant drydock, which closed
15 years ago. It will now be reopened after
EUR28 million (US$31.7 million) state-funded
renovation.
The
dry dock opened in 1975, but closed after
25 years when the market moved east. Work
started early last year under a plan to
reintroduce a repair and maintenance base
for the world's biggest ships. It seems
that the volume of trade today is such to
justify such large capital investment.
The
465-metre long, 85-metre wide drydock is
the third largest in the world after Lisbon
and Dubai. A 25-year franchise has gone
to San Giorgio del Porto, the Mediterranean's
biggest ship repairer and its unit Chantier
Naval de Marseilles.
Taken
as a whole, even these uncoordinated southern
ambitions to challenge the Northern Range
are - or were - of growing importance from
Constanza's eastern hope of punching through
to its fellow European Union states with
road and rail links to Bucharest and Belgrade
- all the way west to Barcelona's hope to
drain off the wine trade of Bordeaux rather
than have it go north to Le Havre, only
to have it go around Portugal and Spain
on its way to China. More important perhaps
are the ambitions Adriatic ports of servicing
central and eastern European cities from
short, regulation-free southern routes.
Or
is it all to be lost in the new normal of
low oil? Or will the march resume if oil
prices rise again? These are question for
Europe to ponder in coming months.
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