PORTS OF HULL & GOOLE REPORT GOOD START TO YEAR
Associated British Ports’ (ABP) Ports of Hull & Goole have reported a steady start to the year, with the first six months buoyed by a number of highlights, including new business wins, record-breaking shipments, investment in new facilities and growth in the Port of Hull’s nascent cruise business.
In March of this year, ABP announced that it is to invest £4.8 million in the provision of new covered storage facilities at Finland Terminal at the Port of Hull. The investment follows ABP reaching new agreements with shippers Finnlines PLC and paper manufacturers UPM-Kymmene Corporation, M-real Alliance and Myllykoski Paper Oy.
The investment involves two 45-metre extensions to the existing paper-storage shed, the construction of a new 6,500 sq m storage shed, additional paving for open storage and enhanced office accommodation. Work on the project is expected to finish in the first half of 2007. Once completed, Finland Terminal, believed to be one of the largest facilities of its kind in the UK, will provide approximately 70,000 sq m of covered storage – an area equivalent to more than nine football pitches. The terminal is a hub for both Finnlines, which operates an extensive network of services between Finland and the rest of Europe, and Finnish paper producers that distribute their products in the north of Britain.
In March, the largest single shipment of scrap metal to be handled at the Port of Hull departed from the port bound for Turkey. The vessel Darya Devi was loaded with some 24,000 tonnes of scrap metal at Sims Group UK Limited’s metals-recycling terminal on 10 Quay, Queen Elizabeth Dock. Sims Group UK is the European subsidiary of Sims Group Limited, the world’s leading ferrous and non-ferrous metals recyclers, which has operations in Australia, North America, Canada, New Zealand, China and South-East Asia.
During the first half of the year, the Port of Hull-based Humber Estuary Services (HES), the arm of ABP with responsibility for conservancy on the Humber, took delivery of three new pilot launches. Delivery of pvs Humber Neptune, Venus and Saturn was staggered over the first six months of 2006, and has seen HES replace the three oldest of HES’s fleet of five pilot launches. ABP undertook the £1.9 million upgrade programme to continue to ensure the safety and efficiency of the pilotage operations on the Humber, the UK’s busiest commercial waterway, for which ABP is the Competent Harbour Authority.
The Port of Hull’s fledgling cruise business had a positive start to the year, recording six cruise calls between April and June compared to only two during the whole of 2005. The port is gradually establishing itself as a port of call on ‘round Britain’ cruises, as well as a ‘turnaround’ port, in which passengers are collected and disembarked.
The number of ferry passengers passing through the port also saw a significant rise, with numbers rising from 430,000 in the first half of 2005 to 448,000 this year for the same period.
ABP Port Director, Hull & Goole, Matthew Kennerley was pleased with the port’s start to the year.
“We have made a good start to 2006, and have had many important developments spanning the very great width and range of our business. We have built up good momentum, which will push us forward in the second half of the year.”
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