Hamburg Vessel Coordination Center and tug shipping company Kotug Smit Towage will cooperate at the Port of Hamburg in order to coordinate preliminary planning for ship calls and departures, and relevant tug services. This step aims to improve the efficiency and quality of ship handling in the Port of Hamburg.
On Sunday, 16 September, Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG loaded the biggest ship propeller in the world onto a vessel. The “HHLA IV” floating crane brought the gigantic 110-tonne object to the port of Waltershof, where it was hoisted onto the “Hyundai Supreme” container ship.
The Port of Rotterdam Authority announced the launch of the World Ports Climate Action Program. In this initiative, the port authorities of Hamburg, Barcelona, Antwerp, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Vancouver and Rotterdam will work together on a number of projects that address the issue of global warming.
European energy company RWE and German LNG Terminal GmbH, the joint venture driving Germany’s first LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel in Northern Germany, have reached an agreement for a considerable part of the terminal’s capacity on a long-term basis.
The Port of Hamburg announced that the planning procedure for the adjustment of the Elbe fairway has been completed with the supplementary planning approval. The legal preliminaries are therefore in place that will enable construction to start. The fairway adjustment will provide one extra metre of draft.
In the first half of 2018 the Port of Hamburg achieved total throughput of 66.5 million tons. That represented a moderate downturn of 4.9%, with the downward trend slowing in the second quarter. General cargo throughput was 45.5 million tons, reduced by 2.2% and bulk cargo throughput was reduced by 10.4% at 21.1 million tons.
Innovative technology will be developed in Hamburg to enable large and very large container ships to switch off their auxiliary diesel supplies during lay time and draw the power for on-board operations from a mobile generator. Namely, Becker Marine Systems, Hapag-Lloyd AG and Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG have been testing the new technology as part of a joint pilot project.
The Hamburg Vessel Coordination Center and the Rotterdam Port Authority reached an agreement, according to which both ports will exchange relevant data through a digital interface so that shipping companies can steer their ships more efficiently and terminals can optimise their resource planning.
As the Port of Hamburg tries to enhance its services, it released its results for 2017 and informed that it will try to transform into a Port 4.0 in the future, to develop its digital business models. In order to do that it plans to improve its infrastructure, implement fairway adjustments and secure good general conditions.
The Port of Hamburg is testing 5G, the next generation mobile standard that aims to transform communications. After six months of preparation the project partners, Hamburg Port Authority, Deutsche Telekom and Nokia, launched a testbed across some 8,000 hectares of port area. A base station has already been installed on Hamburg’s television tower as well.
