Hamburg expands container facilities

The latest of the two projects, both part of much bigger investment programmes by terminal owners, is a ¢ 41.5m contract to expand two existing ship berths at the Burchardkai Container Terminal (CTB).

The work covers the expansion of Berths 3 and 4 and was awarded to a consortium comprising German companies Hochtief Construction AG and F+Z Baugesellschaft mbh. It is part of ongoing million Euro expansion by CTB owner Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) to boost capacity at Burchardkai, Altenwerder and Tollerort, to more than 12m TEU.

The Burchardkai work will be completed in late 2012 and will mean additional handling facilities for future Panama Class container ships. There will then be four high performance berths on the northern side of the Waltershofer Hafen along a quayside extending over 1,470m .

On the south side of the harbour, similar HPA infrastructure modernisation has been underway since 2004 at the private Eurogate Container Terminal. Now final phase expansion costing ¢ 16m has begun to create a third new 205m berth and new surface areas by late 2010. Hochtief, F&Z and Aug. Prien as well as KMT have been involved in construction and design.

To speed up work and minimise noise, HPA has been using swivel armatures and prefabricated steel foundation elements, with materials mainly delivered by water to minimise terminal operation disruption.

The whole project involves the restoration of 900m of quay wall and three berths, all brought forward by 35m. The first berth went into service in 2005 and the second in 2007. They are on 700m of quay equipped with 10 cranes. The port basin is being deepened to 16.7m.

Eurogate MD Emanuel Schiffer noted that Eurogate itself has invested ¢350m in the overall project.

By Tom Todd