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Dredging D-Day Looms for Port of Antwerp

01 Nov 2004

A report compiled by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) following a two year study into the deepening of the River Scheldt has found that such works would not have a negative impact on the environment or security. The river, with its estuary and a navigation channel running through Dutch territory, provides access from the North Sea to the Belgian Port of Antwerp.

The report is expected to carry significant weight in the Dutch Government's decision, due on 4 December, to allow or not allow channel deepening to 13.1m which would enable the Port of Antwerp to better accommodate increasingly larger and deeper draft container ships. Of special significance is the report's finding that dredging would benefit the Netherlands as well as the Flanders region of Belgium.

There are fears at Antwerp Port Authority that Dutch Government delay or refusal to deepen the Scheldt is a means of protecting its own Ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam from a more competitive Port of Antwerp immediately to the south. The Belgians have said that deepening must start in 2007 to enable Antwerp to accommodate some 170 8,000 TEU boxships currently on order. They would like to see the river dredged to at least 14.5m but have accepted the compromise figure of 13.1m.

The current Dutch position is that dredging cannot begin until 2009.

Antwerp Port Authority president Leo Baron Delwaide has stated that if a firm Dutch commitment to dredging by 2007 is not made on 4 December, he would proceed to the International Court of Arbitration, followed by the International Court of Justice.

MJ Information No: 20022

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