28 BULKDISTRIBUTOR
Terminals & Storage
May/June 2016
Ecocem opens new bulk cement terminal
E
cocem Ireland has raised its export
capacity with the launch of its first UKbased bulk import terminal along the
Manchester Ship Canal.
The terminal which represents a £2million
investment has been developed in partnership
with Peel Ports, to help Ireland’s leading
manufacturer of high performance, low carbon
cement capitalise on the booming UK construction
market.
A further £2million has already been committed
to increase capacity at the Runcorn Docks site to
meet growing demands.
The new bulk facility will handle cement from
Ecocem’s production site in Dublin Port. From here
it will be processed and transported direct to the
heartland of the UK’s construction industry via
road, rail and water.
Ecocem Ireland says it is the leading
manufacturer of GGBS (ground granulated
blastfurnace slag) which minimises the
environmental impact of concrete, while
maximising its technical performance.
It has already been used extensively in the UK
including on projects such as the Olympic Stadium
and The Shard in London.
Locally it has been used on projects in
Manchester and Liverpool including One St Peter’s
Square and BDP studios.
This first ever UK-based investment forms part of
Ecocem Ireland’s overall strategy to develop export
markets from its existing facilities.
Construction has also started on a further UK
import facility at Peel Ports Sheerness, giving
access to the lucrative London and South East
England markets.
Conor O’Riain, managing director of Ecocem
Ireland, said: “We’ve invested in state of the art
equipment to demonstrate to the market that we
are here for the long term, and I’m delighted to
say that the response from the market has been
phenomenal. We’ve made commitments to sell
more in the UK in our first year than our total
domestic sales in 2016.”
Andrew Martin, group land and property director
at Peel Ports Group, added: “We have been able
to provide a multi-site solution that will accelerate
the delivery of product as close as possible to the
end customer.”
Cement production in the UK has traditionally
not been sufficient to cope with domestic
demand. The shortfall is covered by imports from
around Europe, and using alternative locally
available materials. Two of the most prominent
materials are fly ash, a by-product of the burning
of coal, and GGBS (manufactured using a byproduct of the production of steel), the
technology used by Ecocem.
The demand for low carbon materials in Europe
has never been stronger, reinforced by the historic
international agreements at the recent COP 21.
Ecocem’s stated ability to deliver a reduction of
over 70 percent in the carbon footprint of
concrete, which remains the world’s most popular
building material, means the future looks bright
for the Irish firm.
Ecocem Ireland’s first ever UK-based investment forms part of its
strategy to develop export markets
HHLA expands
rail terminal
H
amburg container terminal operator Hamburger Hafen
und Logistik (HHLA) is expanding the rail terminal at its
Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA).
The CTA rail terminal will have nine tracks in future, instead of the
current seven, and the expansion will increase the terminal’s
capacity by 140,000 to 930,000 TEU.
Since 2010, annual throughput at the rail terminal has risen by
almost 20 percent to 769,000 TEU in 2015. Rail’s share of total
container volume has also continued to grow in recent years. The
German Federal Ministry of Transport expects that transport services
of rail freight traffic will increase by 43 percent by 2030.
Dr Stefan Behn, of HHLA’s executive board, explained that the
construction project would enable the terminal to increase
efficiency.
“Once construction work has been completed, we will have two
more tracks available, thereby allowing us to provide our customers
with an even more attractive service,” he said. “With this clear
commitment to rail as a mode of transport, we are also
strengthening Hamburg as a rail port, and in the expansion of the
rail terminal, too, we are continuing to focus on automation.”
The total area of the rail terminal will be unaffected by the
expansion, as the two additional tracks will be built on the existing
area. The distance between the tracks will become smaller, meaning
that checking container data will no longer be done, as before, by
terminal staff who would drive along between the trains. For this
reason, a so-calle d ‘train gate’ had to be built. This automatically
records the container data on incoming trains as they enter the
terminal. The automatic recording is quicker than the manual
recording carried out previously, which means that train handling
operations can start sooner. No longer using diesel-powered
vehicles to check the trains also means that emissions of CO2 at the
already largely electrified CTA can also be further reduced.
CTA managing director Oliver Dux emphasised: “When planning
the reconstruction work, we paid particularly close attention to
keeping the inevitable restrictions to handling to a minimum. In
both stages of the expansion, we will have four tracks available. The
six months planned for the construction work is ambitious, but we
are nonetheless continually reviewing further possibilities for
optimisation, in order to further shorten the construction period.
We are also using a range of measures to optimise the utilisation of
the existing capacities. We have been keeping our customers
The CTA rail terminal is expanding from seven to nine tracks