Video: Amsterdam's Waterland Terminal survives the downturn

Rene J. Finson, managing director of privately owned Waterland Terminal at the Port of Amsterdam, said recently that the economic crisis has caused a drop in breakbulk cargoes such as steel, which is down some 25 percent. Overall, he said, forest products, timber, other breakbulks and ro-ro have enabled them to diversify away from an overdependence on steel.

Corus, which operates a steel mill at Amsterdam, normally puts roughly 150,000 metric tons of steel a year through Waterland, but is now using only its own terminal elsewhere at the port. Thus, lower quality steel is being handled and stored in some of Waterland’s covered space, steel that would normally be kept outside.

Waterland Terminal is one of seven all-weather terminals in Europe with covered berths where cargo can be discharged from vessel to barge or quay while sheltered from inclement weather. Waterland includes 400 meters of all-weather berth and an additional 300 meters of open berth. One of the all-weather terminal sections was the first of its type to be built in Northern Europe, back in 1998.

The other six terminals with covered berths are in Antwerp; Rotterdam; Goole, U.K.; Marin, Spain; Basel, Switzerland; and Kokkola, Finland. All of them are owned and operated by separate companies and cooperate to create a network of all-weather terminals for shippers with cargo that needs to be protected from the elements.

Amsterdam-based, privately owned VCKGroup owns a 50 percent interest in Waterland and also operates the multi-purpose and roll on, roll off VCK Scandia Terminal at the port. The Scandia Terminal includes 60,000 square meters of covered warehouse space, three ro-ro berths and a total quay length of 500 meters.

VCKGroup owns other companies including air freight and hi-tech logistics services, a business-to-business travel services company and a service that handles the sea-freight division of an international moving company. The group’s non-maritime ventures are thriving more than the maritime side during the rough economy, said Jaap B. Blok, VCKGroup’s managing director. However, as a whole VCK is “writing black numbers.”