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Odense’s Lindø terminal with a new facility growing. The latest newbuilding from
the Odense Steel Shipyard, “Gunvor Mærsk”, is taken off. Photo: Bent Mikkelsen

Imports fuel Danish ports

Denmark:
Optimism, faith in the future, higher cargo turnover, investments and more facilities. These are some of the features dominating Danish ports. There is a high level of activities and the port management in ports all over the country is in general optimistic about the future, at least for the coming years.

Danish society is on an upward trend with an improving economy. Increasing imports of foreign goods and raw materials, as well as increasing exports of Danish products. The negative trend with outsourcing of production to popular countries like China has had a definitive positive effect on the Danish ports. All the products made by Danish-owned companies in China will eventually come back in containers for sale on the Danish market. Not good for the workforce ashore, but good for shipping companies and the ports.

CMP’s quay Prøvestenen is to be enlarged with some 180,000 square meters, mainly for bulk cargoes like the one on “Mineral”. Photo: Bent Mikkelsen

The largest Danish container port is still Århus. It holds a public terminal along with the exclusive terminal for Maersk Line and APM Terminal. APM Terminal has recently taken over a further 70,000 square metres added to the terminal in 2001 as more space was needed. Transit from the terminal is growing steadily.
Århus continues to develop land in direct connection with the APM Terminal and will end up with an extra 800 metres of new quay with 14 metres depth. Onshore there will be an extra 200,000 square metres of land fitted with two new Post-Panmax cranes capable of reaching 60 metres out from the quayside. The new terminal will be ready on 1 May 2007.

CMP (Copenhagen Malmö Port) is in the middle of a large investment in a new bulk terminal in Copenhagen. It is an extension of Prøvestenen’s southern part, which for some years has been a bulk terminal for stone, sand and scrap.
New land has been reclaimed from Øresund creating some 180,000 square metres of land. A new 650-metre quay will also be added, with a water depth of 13.5 metres. That is expected to increase the import of stone in bigger units, as there is now direct access to the quay from Øresund.
CMP has a smaller turnover of containers in the inner terminals, but is expanding rapidly as a hub for the import of new cars by several major importers with centres for checking before retail sales.

Odense
The third in line of Danish cities, Odense, is also enlarging its port facilities. The Lindø Terminal quay has recently been extended from 350 metres to more than 500 metres. The land has been extended some 94,000 square metres for storage and distribution.

The water depth is 11 metres in the terminal, which means it can accommodate ships of up to 50,000 DWT. The price for the new part of the terminal amounts to DKK 63 million. Most of this money is taken from the sale of old land in the inner harbour. A large part was sold to be used for a combination of exclusive housing and offices.

In fact, there is a kind of trend in ports all over Denmark. The old facilities are sold to developers for executive housing with water view. Copenhagen, Odense, Vordingborg, Aalborg, Frederikshavn, Holbæk, Esbjerg and Vejle are some of the ports, where projects already has been realised or is going to be realised in the coming years.

In Fredericia liquid bulk is an essential part of the cargo volume. Each day, all year round, a 100,000 tonnes load of crude oil from the North Sea. Photo: Bent Mikkelsen

The port of Vejle is going to be a centre for a large facility owned by the Swedish company Lantmännen, whose subsidiary company Mills is to build a new mill in the port of Vejle. Easy access for ships and easy distribution via the motorways was the criteria for building the facility in Vejle. It is an investment of DKK 400 million. When the mill in Vejle is completed, older facilities in Ringsted (inland facility) and Copenhagen will be closed down.

A number of other Danish ports are planning or working on changes for various purposes. Skagen is to build a new facility serving as back land for the port of Skagen, but with no new quays. In fact Skagen is to cut down on its quays, as some of the inner port will be rebuilt into a large dry-dock facility for Karstensens Skibsværft. A need for bigger dock facilities has been on top of the priority list of the shipyard for several years, as the fishing vessel production (main production) is growing in size.

Almost the same picture can be seen in Søby on the isle of Ærø. The shipbuilder Søby Værft has convinced the municipality of Søby to get involved in the building of the new dry-dock capable of accommodating ships of up to 6,000 DWT. Otherwise the yard will be closed down in a not so distant future. The construction of breakwaters has already started.

Horsens is starting a new development shortly, consisting of a new quay and back land facilities. Grenå is not building at the moment, but a new facility was built last year. There are no new plans the moment.

The fishing ports in the northwest of Denmark have also been looking towards the cargo side. Hirtshals, Hanstholm and Thyborøn have all been developing more services for freight customers. Hirtshals has for a number of years served several liner services with containers and pallets. The old fishing port Esbjerg is in a kind of recession in the fishing sector. The largest production facility on land, Triple Nine decided to close down, leaving Esbjerg with only on fish factory. Esbjerg still has a strong liner service to the UK and now also a service with trailers to Zeebrügge in Belgium in order to sail around the German road tax Maut. With its existing facilities, Esbjerg has a fairly large export of wind turbines.

//Bent Mikkelsen

Latest update 18-10-2006 8:49

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