Ports

With the shipping industry entering a new, environmentally-friendly period, stakeholders in the maritime industry are seeking for ways to reduce their ships’ emissions. Apart from choosing green fuels and scrubbers, ports come to add another solution: Cold Ironing. This is the process of providing shoreside electrical power to a ship at berth, while its main and auxiliary engines are turned off.

Container throughput in ports of Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 7.7% in 2018 compared to 2017, according to data provided by UN ECLAC. This analysis is based on the performance of a sampling of 31 countries and 118 ports and port areas in the region.

The Associated British Ports (ABP) invested £2.3 million in a new energy efficient crane to benefit customers at the Port of Newport, boosting the port's efficient operations and handling capabilities.

The European maritime single window environment, which was agreed in early February 2019, aims to address the issue of numerous, non-harmonised reporting obligations by linking the existing national maritime single windows together in a coordinated and harmonised way. The reform will improve interoperability between various systems, making it much easier to share and reuse data.

A recent study conducted by the North Sea Port along with relevant companies throughout the port area, showed that about 54% of goods are transported to the hinterland via means of island waterway shipping.

Chain parties in the port of Rotterdam launched a set of guidelines, providing recommendations to shippers and/or freight forwarders when it comes to influencing the development of a more transparent and efficient structure for the inland container shipping chain.

For terminals in the world’s biggest port cities, adapting to the mega container ships constitutes a major challenge. Namely, according to Jan-Olaf Probst, Director Business Development DNV GL, terminals must have the capability to deal with peak workloads, and handle large numbers of containers in a short period of time.

As the European elections take place in May 2019, the Port of Rotterdam sets out its priorities for the coming years in the field of decarbonization. The Port of Rotterdam highlights that a system change is necessary to enable the energy transition, both in Rotterdam and in the rest of Europe. Namely the Port of Rotterdam will focus on energy transition, biobased and circular economy, Carbon Capture and Storage, dydrogen and renewables, and decarbonisation of transport.

In recent months, 32 companies at the RDM site in the port of Rotterdam have been testing a new energy platform: Distro. Working with solar panels and a battery, users trade energy they have produced themselves in a local market.

Associated British Ports (ABP) calls all British technology companies to overcome any operational challenges in the shipping industry and focus on bringing innovation and digitalization; It collaborates with  the Knowledge Transfer Network, to run the EnSiX Challenge Competition, which invites UK businesses to provide innovative solutions to help boost efficiency and sustainability.