Glaessel is one of Germany's most respected shipping
agencies with trained and experienced staff to help customers with
any need. Due to being part of a larger transport group, Glaessel has
established relationships with numerous clients that provide specialist
sevices to enable shipment of almost any type of cargo. With dedicated
sub agencies thoughout Germany, Glaessel is able to offer customers
the benefit of having experienced staff on hand and depots within
easy reach.
Glaessel is ISO 9002 accredited through Det Norske Vertitas.
With the introduction of this quality management system Glaessel is
proud to provide a constantly high level of service to all its customers.
OT Africa Line Service Brochure
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For comprehensive details highlighting our service from Spain please
see our latest service
brochure.
Hamburg
Port Information
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Port Infrastructure
Germany is OTAL's biggest timber market and receives large volumes of cocoa.
On an export basis, Hamburg is one of OTAL's largest ports for loading rolling
cargo and cars, as well as supplying complex general cargo parcels requiring
specialist handling skills.
The port of Hamburg has a distance to the open sea round about 100-Km and
is accesible on the river Elbe even to the largest ships.
An uninterrupted chain of radar stations and buoys along the rive Elbe and
the availability of tug and pilot assistance ensure the River is navigable
at night and in poor visibility.
Hamburg is an international centre for trade, industry and transport.
Centrally located at the heart of Europe - the port serves a potential market
of more
than 400 million people. It is ideally located to meet the logistical requirements
of our clients through an outstanding network of land and water connections
and stands at the cross-roads between East and West Europe and Scandinavia.
The port of Hamburg offers its customers four container terminals and eight
multi purpose terminals that also handle containers. The leading container
terminals can deal with future generation ships. That means that they can handle
2500 TEUS or more in less than 24 hours and that the biggest container ships
can leave Hamburg again in one day.
84 per cent of Hamburg's cargo are containerised. The quantities of conventional
cargo are still of great significance. Conventional cargo refers to boxes and
crates, bags, wheeled cargo, heavy goods, neo-bulk and break bulk cargo. Hamburg
has specialists terminals for handling automobiles, fruit and vegetables, paper
and cardboard, cellulose, fertilizers, sugar, coffee and cocoa in bags. The
port is also specialist handling for consigments and machine parts in crates,
iron and steel pipes, copper plates, scrap for steelwork and tyres for tractors.
OTAL’s terminal operations at Hamburg are handled by Buss Hansa. Facilities
at the terminal include a 200,000 m² storage area, 37,000 m² of warehouses
along with a special area for groupage and consolidation.
OTAL uses sheds 80, 81 and 82. Ro-ro cargoes are handled separately from container
and general cargoes. Sheds 80 and 81 are dedicated to container, general and
groupage cargoes while shed 82 and its environs is dedicated to rolling cargoes.
The movement of cargo is eased by these divisions and thus, in turn, operational
efficiencies, turn-around and safety is improved.
The port of Hamburg offers easy access to vessels sailing up the River Elbe
due to a chain of radar stations alongside the river from the Lightvessel Elbe
1 to the far corners of the port. These act as an invaluable aid, as it permits
ships to sail faster and far more independent of weather conditions.
Hamburg offers special custom facilities such as free zones
or free ports i.e. not being within the EU's customs area. Characterised
by unlimited storage
periods with no question of imposing any import duties. The economic advantages
resulting from this are obvious, particularly for the import trade; no sales
tax or VAT is levied within the free port thus capital resources are released,
liquidity problems avoided and interest still earned. Only when the goods leave
the free zone are such taxes imposed. The free port operates on the basis of
minimising bureaucracy and maximising commercial opportunity. Covering an area
of 16km² the free port offers container terminals, cargo handling facilities
and specialist gear for general cargo, numerous warehouses and the worlds largest
contiguous warehouse complex.
Port News ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Draft Limits Hit Hamburg Cargo Volumes -
04/02/10
Hamburg, Germany’s largest seaport, saw its 2009 cargo volumes slump
as inadequate access for larger vessels allowed European rivals Rotterdam and
Antwerp to gain market share in a fiercely competitive ports arena. The number
of boxes transported between Hamburg and its most important business partners,
China and Singapore, plunged by 26.8% and 28.7% respectively. Short sea Baltic
traffic to and from Russia and Finland was hit even harder, with the number
of boxes diving by 54.7% and 43.9% respectively. Hamburg also had less calls
from ultra-large containerships exceeding 10,000 teu than Dutch port Rotterdam.
There is no port in the northern range that has lost as much cargo as Hamburg
has.
The number one issue for the port is the deepening
of the Elbe. Hamburg is situated some 140 km from the coast and can only be
reached via the river
Elbe,
which allows a maximum draught of 17 m. Ultra-large containerships can only
reach the port, when they ride the tide, which usually involves a period
of waiting.
Total cargo handling at Hamburg in 2009 was down
21% compared to 2008, with some 110m tonnes passing through the port. Box throughput
was down
even sharper,
by 28%, to reach 7m teu. In comparison, Rotterdam saw an 8.1% decline in
total 2009 volumes to 387m tonnes while Antwerp reported a 16.7% fall to 157.8m
tonnes.
Among the four largest northern ports, Hamburg now has a market share of
about 24.5% and sits behind Rotterdam with 34.0% and Antwerp with 25.5%, according
to figures from Hamburg Hafen Marketing. Both ports increased their share
at
the expense of Hamburg. The twin ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven kept their
share nearly stable at 15.9%. Hamburg has already introduced reduced charges
for feeder-bound cargo to regain part of the lost volumes.
The dredging of
the river Elbe is a political issue as it touches the interests of Hamburg’s neighbouring states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.
Dredging could start, at the earliest, at the beginning of 2011 even if the
final decision is taken soon. In March, the HPA will publish first results
of a market survey on the still-to-be-built terminal Steinwerder. At the moment,
it is unclear whether the terminal will become a box handling facility as was
initially planned or not. HPA has also commissioned advisory firm McKinsey
to evaluate growth potential for the port. The new facility will aim to bring
additional cargo to the port of Hamburg, said Axel Gedaschko, the city state’s
economics minister. This could be reached via a strategic partner such as a
shipping company, a terminal operator or a logistics company, or a combination
of the three. [LL 04/02/10]
Germany Approves Joint Terminal Venture
- 01/02/10
Germany has approved an inland container terminal joint venture between the
nation’s top two rival stevedores. HHLA and Eurogate [www.eurogate.de]
will each have a 50% stake in the new company which plans to establish a
network of inland container terminals across Germany that will feed boxes
by rail to Hamburg and Bremen/Bermerhaven.The companies are expected to focus
on major industrial regions, particularly the Ruhr valley which ships a large
portion of exports and imports through Rotterdam and Antwerp. Hamburg-based
HHLA has a sizeable intermodal operation, transporting over 1.8 million 20-foot
equivalent units in 2008. Eurogate, Europe’s biggest container terminal
company, operates an integrated transport network from Hamburg and Bremen/Bremerhaven
to south Germany and southeast Europe. [JOC 01/02/10]
HHLA & Eurogate Launch Co-Operation
Project - 30/12/09
German terminal operator HHLA is to co-operate with rival operator Eurogate
at the port of Hamburg. HHLA plans to establish a new joint central office
for feeder logistics [FLZ]. The move is part of attempts to regain lost transhipment
volumes. Eurogate and HHLA both operate container terminal facilities in
the port. In recent months Hamburg has suffered a severe loss of feeder volumes
as carriers have moved their feeders to the western ports in the northern
range, such as Rotterdam or Zeebrugge. [LL 30/12/09]
Hamburg Port To Dissolve Free Zone / 50%
On Dues - 11/12/09
Effective 01/01/13, Hamburg port will finally dissolve its free zone. The
original plan was to reduce the area from the current
1,634 ha to just 60 ha centred on Indiahafen. However, the city government
abandoned this idea because of the high costs
involved. Electronic customs declarations and the like have made the physical
zone largely superfluous. The novel free zone
facility was long considered a strengthening factor behind Hamburg’s
position as a transhipment port.
In an attempt to regain part of its recently lost transhipment business,
or at least to prevent further defection of services, as
from 01/01/10, Hamburg will offer mainline carriers discounts of up to 50%
on dues for feeder containers.
It will also allow
carriers to defer payments by up to one year while pilots skip their planned
fee increase. For the future, the Hamburg Port
Authority intends to introduce a new port costs scheme that depends on the
actual cargo volume handled, instead of on the
size of the ship only. Critics think that the lack of competition between terminal
operators in Hamburg is the real reason
behind the loss of non-captive cargoes. The port has always shied away from
giving other parties, including carrier-controlled stevedores, access to large-scale
box handling beyond the current oligopoly of [private] Eurogate and HHLA [in
which the city-state of Hamburg is the largest shareholder]. The delayed deepening
of the River Elbe giving access to the
port and the new development of deepsea services calling directly at Baltic ports
are factors not helping either.
Hamburg’s pilots and the Elbe River pilots are also to forego the increase
in pilotage charges already fixed for 2010. [DY
11/12/09]
Germany To Expand Hinterland Traffic -
09/01/09
The German federal railway, Deutsche Bahn AG has confirmed its decision to
expand
its market share in the Port of
Hamburg’s hinterland by implementing targeted investment projects. Not
only does it invest extensively in pivotal
infrastructure projects, such as the modernisation of the Maschen marshalling
yard. The refurbishment of the existing
infrastructure at a total cost of some €230m is expected to be completed
by the end of 2013. Over the years to 2014, a third
railway track will be built in the approximately 27km long Stelle-Lüneburg
section and a fourth track will be laid between
Stelle and Ashausen.
The federal government and the German railway will
invest €280m in this
project. In Hausbruch, a two track expansion
project is to improve the port railway’s rail links. The facilities at
the Billwerder rail freight station will be expanded at a cost of
about €17m. The funding will come from the economic recovery programme
launched by the federal government. [MJ
09/12/09]
Hamburg Upbeat Despite Handling Downturn
- 19/05/09
The port of Hamburg reported a decline in overall handling figures by 21.7%
to 27.3m tonnes in the first quarter of 2009, but said there were first signs
of an upward trend. Handling figures for general and bulk cargo were better
than in 2008. Turnover of heavylift and project was up by 33.2%, and grain
handling improved by 121% to 774,000 tonnes. However, box turnover was down
by 24.3%, to 1.9m teu, compared with the first quarter of 2008. The port
is suffering from a weakness in Far East and China trades. Transhipment volumes
to the Baltic region also nosedived. [LL19/05/09]
German-African Centre Launched In Bonn -
July 2008
A newly founded German-African Centre [Deutsch-Afrikanisches Zentrum or DAZ]
was launched in Bonn on 07/05/08. DAZ is a platform to promote trade, investment,
education and cultural understanding between Africa and Germany. Member countries
include Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali and Ghana.
Contacts
and Links
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Buss Hansa Terminal GmbH
AM Travehaven
Breslauerstrasse
Shed 80/81 (Containers, general cargo and groupage)
Shed 82 (Cars and ro-ro)
20457 Hamburg
Germany
Afika-Verein
German business association for German companies with business interests in
African countries. Aim to inform members about Africa and the African markets
and to expand business contacts between Africa and Germany.
Neuer Jungfernstieg 21 OTAL Marketing I CMA-CGM Group Company I Last Updated:
23/07/07
Hamburg
20354
Tel: (+4940) 4191330
Fax: (+4940) 354704
E-mail: post@afrikaverein.de
Website: www.afrikaverein.de