Peel Ports’ new 400 mill. £ deepwater Liverpool2 (L2) container terminal, which opened last month, forms part of a larger 1 bn $ »Superport« project designed to turn the city on the River Mersey into a multimodal logistics hub for the entire northern half of the UK
The strategic goal is to enact a major change in the UK’s logistics flow by attracting shippers to drop off[ds_preview] or load cargoes in Liverpool that currently use southern UK ports as their national gateway. It has been described as a key component of the government’s »Northern Powerhouse« initiative, designed to rebalance the national economy away from London and the South.
L2 targets in particular traffic to/from the Americas and Asia via the recently widened Panama Canal. Liverpool is already the country’s biggest transatlantic port, with 45% market share, as well as being the only major container port in the north or west of the UK. Lines currently calling the port include Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, ACL and Bibby Line.
The new facility is built on 16 ha of reclaimed land and complements the port’s existing Royal Seaforth Container Terminal, doubling annual capacity to nearly 2mill. TEU. Dredged to 16.5m alongside draught, it can simultaneously handle two container vessels of up to 13,500TEU each – the maximum size of liner vessels now able to pass through the widened Panama Canal.
»Liverpool is ideally located to increase our trade with countries west of the UK, including the US, Canada and South America, and this new port opens up even more opportunities with new markets and export destinations for UK businesses«, said Liam Fox, UK Secretary of State for International Trade, at the L2 opening.
Mark Whitworth, CEO of Peel Ports, added that the new terminal’s »state-of-the art facilities and technology… offer a real competitive advantage with a shorter supply chain and providing an all-water route right to the heart of the UK via the Manchester Ship Canal.« Peel Ports also owns the Manchester Ship Canal, as well as several terminals alongside, offering inland connectivity for seaborne cargoes which transit via L2.
Some 35 mill. people or 58% of the UK’s population is located closer to Liverpool than its competitor ports in the south, points out the terminal operator, while the area enjoys the highest density of large warehousing in the UK with more than 28% of the national total lying within a 112km radius of the city. Peel Ports hopes that L2 will help build Liverpool market share of UK container traffic from the current 8% to nearer 15 to 20%.
Hence the larger »Superport« project is designed to enhance multimodal transport infrastructure serving the city, including a new six-lane Mersey Gateway road bridge, due to open in late 2017, as well as improved rail links plus several dedicated rail freight terminals. In addition, Liverpool John Lennon Airport is one of the country’s busiest regional airports handling over 4mill. passengers a year.
Just like The Beatles, Liverpool has been keen to learn from the German port city of Hamburg, and sent a fact-finding mission there (and to Berlin) at the end of last year to study how it has succeeded in transforming itself into a world-class multimodal hub since the turn of the century.
Today Hamburg represents »a modern international port with best-in-class material handling and logistics operations«, said delegation leader Bernard Molloy of Unipart Logistics at the time.
»You need to plan the whole thing together to realise efficiencies«, he added: »A world class deepwater container terminal, Liverpool2, but also manufacturing and material handling to feed it, where everything is integrated more efficiently.«
ED
