A recent published EY report (Ernst & Young – Dutch Oilfield Services Analysis, 2018) shows how important the offshore industry is to the Port of Rotterdam. As the report notes, Rotterdam is the largest and most important cluster in the Netherlands. The port and city accommodates a number of the largest offshore companies active in the Netherlands.
The accumulation of these companies at Rotterdam is happening mainly because of two reasons:
- First, the Port of Rotterdam provides an access point for the offshore industry;
- Second, the Rotterdam region is home to a wide array of storage, refining and transport assets for the oil and gas sector as a whole.
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The refineries of integrated oil and gas companies that are located in the Port of Rotterdam are surrounded by the oil storage infrastructure, indicating the importance of Rotterdam as the hub of a large part of the downstream oil and gas infrastructure.
The importance of offshore to the Netherlands is also seen through several companies based outside of the Rotterdam area: the Noord-Brabant region for example, with its active cluster of family businesses.
Offshore vessels in the Port of Rotterdam
The first three months of the year, the Port of Rotterdam reported a large amount of calls by offshore vessels, with statistics showing a large amount of heavy load, semi sub & crane vessels compared to other ports.
These vessels mainly enter the port for (de)mobilization and project related activities like the installation of platforms and wind farms.
Offshore activity monitor
The Business Analytics and Intelligence department of the Port of Rotterdam Authority has created the Offshore Activity Monitor. This monitor tracks all offshore ships and records where they are located. With this solution, the Port has an insight into different ports and wind farms.
We have set up this monitor to better map the market, to gain insights and to serve our customers even better
the Port of Rotterdam said.
In addition, the first quarter of 2019 proved that the Rotterdam receives the largest number of offshore vessels of all Dutch seaports.
Offshore calls by ship-type in 2018
Crane vessels, non-propelled are the majority of ships calling at the Port, followed by supply tenders, utility vessels, and work/repair vessels. However, the following graph does not contain crew transfer vessels and dredging vessels, because of distorted imaging.
See more information in the following PDF
