6
B ULK D ISTRIBUTOR
Intermodal
Swissterminal
ĮůĞƐĐŽŵƉůĂŝŶƚ
against Gateway
Basel Nord
A
row is brewing over the funding of a planned container
handling facility in Basel, Switzerland.
Swissterminal, a family-owned firm providing container terminal
services in the Basel area, has lodged a formal complaint with the
Swiss Federal Administrative Court against the federal funding for
the planned container terminal project Gateway Basel Nord.
The complaint follows the decision of the Swiss Federal Office of
Transport (FOT) in July 2018 to fund publicly three quarters of the
costs of the first project stage.
Swissterminal considers the federal-funded project a severe threat
to competition in terms of container terminal handling services. In
its complaint to the Swiss Federal Administrative Court the company
claims a breach of economic freedom as well as a restriction of
competition law and international regulations for free trade.
Swissterminal also argues that it is directly affected by the future
project, but that it has not been granted any participatory rights in
the current planning procedure.
The complaint filed with the court on 14 September is directed
against both Gateway Basel Nord AG (GBN AG), in which national
rail operator Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB) is the main
shareholder, and the FOT. The complaint calls for a repeal of the
decree issued on 4 July 2018 as it violates applicable law in many
November/December 2018
Swissterminal argues that the funding for Gateway Basel Nord could be deemed illegal
ways, according to Swissterminal.
The complaint states that the FOT has not carried out the
mandatory fact-finding process in a proper manner, but rather in an
extremely biased way, because it simply followed the reasoning of
the future gateway operators without any verification. Examples of
this are the forecasted volume development, the claimed productivity
growth, and the predicted shift of traffic from road to rail.
The complainant furthermore argues that the FOT failed to assess
the legitimacy of market entry of GBN AG as a state-owned
enterprise. GBN AG’s main shareholder is SBB Cargo, which is a
subsidiary of SBB AG and therefore 100 percent state-owned. At the
same time, SBB is a co-owner of Hupac, which is a minority
shareholder of GBN AG. However, the authorities have not
considered whether this kind of state involvement complies with
applicable law pertaining to the existing market, which is heavily
sustained by private companies, Swissterminal argues.
In Swissterminal’s view, the financing of the remaining quarter of
Gateway Basel Nord is questionable as well. Even though this part
of the funds required should be met by GBN AG itself, the fact is
that SBB Cargo is highly indebted and does not have the
appropriate means for funding itself, the firm argues. It therefore
needs to be examined whether the money required originates from
funds that SBB AG received for its subsidised business unit. If so, this
would represent an unlawful cross-subsidisation.
Another key issue of the complaint is the infringement of
economic freedom and fair competition through the federal
government’s commitment to subsidise nearly CHF83 million. The
federal funds will finance a project through which private market
players will be squeezed out of the market and ultimately eliminates
or, at least, massively distorts current competition. The FOT’s
decision also violates international regulations because the free
trade agreements between Switzerland and the EU “clearly rule
out” such kinds of federal subsidies that lead to impediments to the
international movement of goods linked to the European Union’s
market.
Swissterminal also records that it has not been granted any kind of
participatory rights in connection with the current subsidy
procedure, even though Gateway Basel Nord affects its business
environment to a higher extent than any other company in the
market. The federal office’s refusal went so far that Swissterminal
only received the decree issued on 4 July 2018 after filing a formal
request. However, at the time of issuing filing the complaint
Swissterminal had not been granted access to the files underlying
the FOT’s decision.
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B
eaulieu International Group (BIG), based in Waregem,
Belgium, recently released the results of its multimodal
logistics platform which uses waterway transport to reduce
its dependency on trucks.
BIG is a vertically integrated maker of flooring solutions, fibres and
yarns, plus associated raw materials, such as polymers. As such it
operates a complex chemical supply chain.
According to BIG the programme reduced the company’s container
transport-related CO2 emissions by 36 percent in 2017 and is
scheduled to achieve a further 55 percent reduction in the coming
years.
Since the start of the programme in 2015, it has grown
substantially and now 60 percent of BIG’s output by container is
transported via barges starting at the River Terminal Wielsbeke
(RTW). RTW acts as BIG’s global inland hub, connecting the
company to major shipping routes and destinations around the
world via Port of Antwerp.
The container transport organisation was set up in close co-
operation with RTW operator Delcatrans, which provides barge
transport services, and Manuport Logistics, which acts as 4PL
partner for BIG.
Previously all container cargo went by truck to Antwerp, a distance
of 90km. By changing to water transport, journey times have
become more reliable as traffic congestion doesn’t have to be
factored in; there are fewer trucks on the roads reducing traffic for
other road users; and the company’s CO2 emissions have fallen. In
2017 the company shipped 3,000 containers via combined road and
barge transport, reducing CO2 emissions by 300 tonnes, compared
with pure road transport.
“BIG is committed to providing efficient and sustainable transport
solutions,” explained Isabelle Vandamme, group supply chain &
procurement director. “That’s why barge transport from RTW to Port
of Antwerp is so important for us and will continue to be so in the
coming years. In fact, our target is to increase barge use by 10
percent this year and barge capacity is planned to increase from 60
to 90 TEU.”
Comparing average CO2 emissions per tonne/km, road transport
emits 62g CO2/tonne-km, against 34g CO2/tonne-km using
intermodal road and barge.
RTW handled 15,000 TEU via barge in 2017, of which more than
one-third (5,100 TEU) came from BIG.
River Terminal Wielsbeke acts as BIG’s global inland hub,
connecting the company to major shipping routes and
destinations around the world via Port of Antwerp
With more than 72 million tonnes, a record volume of goods was
transported on Flemish waterways in 2017. This was an increase of
6.5 percent over the previous year. In terms of containers, a new
best performance was achieved with 832,000 TEU, an increase of
11.5 percent on 2016.
“Even though this sustainability programme is primarily the
responsibility of our transport and logistics departments,” added Luc
Speecke, chief operating officer, “we believe its success wouldn’t
have been possible without the support of our entire organisation,
and this philosophy carries through to the other sustainability
programmes that we are currently investigating and testing. If these
programmes prove to be as successful as we expect, we will shortly
roll them out across the entire company.”
• In Port of Antwerp, Antwerp Terminal Services began making up
the planning for loading and unloading operations for barges in
the PSA, DP World and MPET container terminals. The operation is
done using the Quintic planning software and the BTS (Barge
Traffic System) for berth reservation.
Central barge planning and monitoring will ensure efficient, co-
ordinated timing of loading and unloading, resulting in a planned
sailing schedule for each barge, without conflicts, says Antwerp Port
Authority. This will simplify and optimise the entire scheduling cycle.
The central barge planning is closely involved in co-ordination
between the deepsea terminals and consolidation hubs, thus
helping to consolidate smaller container barge volumes.
The project is being introduced in stages, with the aim of having
24/7 scheduling and monitoring of container barge operations by
the end of the year. If the final evaluation is positive then the
initiative will be further developed.
Another initiative in port’s action plan for container barges, is the
extension of the timeframe related to the reduced basic rate from
36 to 48 hours.
This extension comes in response to demand from the container
barge sector as barges have to wait longer in the container
terminals before they can be handled, due to delays at the
terminals.
The new regime was introduced by the Port Authority on 11
September.