DB Schenker Rail Polska is to invest EUR22.5 million (US$29.24 million) in the Baltic Sea Polish ports of Szczecin and Swinousjscie by expanding facilities in the addition of new wharfs and cranes by 2018 with the ports’ authority.
DB Schenker Rail Polska CEO Hans-Georg Werner said the company would buy two gantry cranes in Szczecin and another in Swinoujscie, thus increasing the two ports’ transshipment capacity.
The company transships containers, less-than carload freight, paper and cellulose, granite, steel and other goods at the ports and carries out a project cargo business and will, with the addition of new IT systems and roads, begin operating from the new container terminal in autumn of this year. Annual capacity at Szczecin will double to 220,000 TEU.
By 2018, a total of EUR16.5 million will have been invested in the expansion. As a result, space and equipment will be able to be restructured for conventional transshipment.
A modern Liebherr crane is being installed at the port of Swinoujscie. A contract with Polish Trade Services of the agricultural production and food producer Bunge International Group will secure transshipment for the long term. The crane can move 10,000 metric tons a day. The terminal expansion will create capacity for an additional few hundred thousand metric tons each year. The first ship carrying imported products is scheduled to pass through the port in mid-2011.
“These investments in our ports are part of our plan to develop transportation over the long term,” said Christian Schreyer, DB Schenker Rail Polska management board member responsible for logistics. “We are expecting port hinterland rail transports in particular to increase as a result of the port capacity expansion.”
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Source: Shipping Gazette, July 30, 2010;