|
Page 2 of 2
Looking
to the group's wider business activities,
which span the breadth of Europe, and extend
even into North Africa, Mr Egger admits
that talk in the liner industry of consolidation
going forward could have an impact on Eurogate's
business.
"The
good thing for us is that we do have all
of the top 25 shipping lines as our customers.
We don't have them in each of our facilities,
but we have all of them at least somewhere,"
he said.
This
at least saves them, to some degree, from
having business pulled away because of a
new alliance or a business merger between
a shipping line that doesn't call at its
facilities with one of its existing customers.
Another
advantage Eurogate possesses is that it
is not just a terminal operator¡Xa fact
that Mr Egger argues will make its Wilhelmshaven
project even more successful.
"We
are not only providing the terminal operation,
but also additional supplementary services.
We are running our own intermodal systems.
We are the biggest private German rail operator.
So we are connecting our terminals, our
ports to the hinterland, to the eastern
European region, to the Italian and German
industrial regions," he said.
Eurogate
is also a great advocate of the need for
partnerships with the lines and other supply
chain operators¡Xsomething that the likes
of Maersk has greatly emphasised in recent
years.
In
fact Eurogate is working with Maersk at
a number of its terminals, including Wilhelmshaven,
as well as Geneva-based shipping giant MSC.
Looking
to the full year result for 2012, Mr Egger
said he expects that volumes were more in
line with the previous year's final figures
across all terminals, but he expects reasonable
growth at some facilities, including Bremerhaven.
"We
are quite confident and quite happy with
the actual development. Although let's say
the total economy is slower and there are
more challenges to come," he said.
For
the time being, however, the greatest challenge
for the terminal operator is to ensure that
all of the natural advantages of its newest
terminal are leveraged into making it the
success that Eurogate and its fellow investors
believe it can be, particularly in light
of the influx of ultra large containerships
going forward.
"We
are going to show that our facility in Wilhelmshaven
will be the one [that] can provide excellent
services for these strong peaks that we're
going to face with the bigger vessels. We're
going to have the Triple-E class from Maersk
Line from July and this will be the next
step into the next generation," he
said.
Page 1 2
|
