DP World's London Terminal to Open Late 2013

DP World said its London Gateway deep-sea container port will start operations in the fourth quarter of 2013 with an initial annual capacity of 1.6 million 20-foot equivalent container units.

The Dubai-based company on Tuesday said it will invest another $1 billion over the next three years in the terminal and logistics hub, located 25 miles from downtown London. The London Gateway project will create 1,000 new jobs – 700 in construction and 300 in the container facility, DP World said.

With a major new port incorporating Europe’s largest logistics park on London’s doorstep “U.K. business will soon be able to take advantage a more cost effective, greener way of getting the nation’s goods to consumers,” the world’s third largest port operator said.

London Gateway will compete with Felixstowe, the U.K. largest container port, around 50 miles northeast of the DP facility. Felixstowe, which is owned Hong Kong’s Hutchison Port Holdings, last week inaugurated the first deep-water berths in the U.K. able to handle the latest generation of mega container vessels of 18,000 TEUs.

DP World, signed several contracts for the London Gateway project, which it inherited in its 2006 acquisition of the U.K’s P&O group in 2006.

China’s ZPMC will provide eight of the world’s largest quay cranes able to handle ships up to 18,000 TEUs and rail-mounted gantry cranes for the port’s rail terminal. Cargotec will supply automated stacking cranes and straddle carriers.

-- Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.