Bremerhaven plans €170 million box handling upgrade

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Under study in Bremerhaven is a €170 million upgrade of berths at the German port’s giant Stromkaje container handling facility, writes Tom Todd.

Part of Bremerhaven's giant North Sea container handling facilities.

The study was ordered by the Bremen State Senate, which is responsible for port development in Bremerhaven and its smaller sister port Bremen, inland on the River Weser.

The Senate wants to adapt Stromkaje berth infrastructures to cope with expected larger, deeper- draught boxships with capacities of up to about 24,000 teus. Estimates are that upgrading will cost about €170 million with the work beginning in three years. Some €1.1 million has been set aside by the Senate for the upgrade study.

Port management firm bremenports is carrying out the study and looking at “possible variants”, which would affect berths along a 2.4kms section of the Stromkaje covering Terminals 1-3A. Bremenports spokesman Holger Bruns told Maritime Journal it was still early days as far as upgrade details were concerned. “We have only just begun to look at the various options”, he said, predicting that evaluation would take “until at least the autumn of 2021”.

Science and Ports Senator Claudia Schilling said "the project is of outstanding importance for the future competitiveness of the Bremen ports. Shipping companies have recently brought ever- larger ships into service around the world, and these are bringing with them additional demands on quay infrastructures”.

As well as berth upgrading, port officials said the work will also include the acquisition of “larger, higher and more powerful” container cranes than currently operate, as well as deeper water depths alongside.

The Stromkaje is part of Bremerhaven’s Wilhelm Kaisen Container handling facility which is 4.9kms long and has 14 berths. It is one of the longest such sites in the world and the fourth largest container hub in Europe with about 3 million m2 of operating area and more than 40 container cranes on water depths of 12.6-15m.

Wilhelm Kaisen has been expanded in six phases since groundbreaking in 1968. The Container Terminal 3A entered service in 2003 and the latest expansion, Container Terminal 4, was added in 2008 at a cost of some €400 million. Because of environmental concerns however the Senate agreed that the latest planned terminal expansion will be the last to involve deepening of the Outer Weser.