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Agency Details
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Ernst Glaessel GmbH
Alter Wall 67 - 69
D-20457 Hamburg
Germany
Tel: (+4940) 37607410 / (+4940) 37607405
Fax: (+4940) 37607117
E-Mail: achim.saenger@glaessel.de or susanne.aschik@glaessel.de

Ernst Glaessel GmbH
Kohlhökerstr. 29
28203 Bremen
Germany
Tel: (+49421) 36900687
Fax: (+49421) 36900643
E-Mail: gunter.wosny@glaessel.de

Click here for a list of all OTAL agency offices

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.

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OT Africa Line Service Brochure
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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.

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Location

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.

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Facilities

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.

 

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Radar Stations

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.

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Free Zone

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.

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Port News
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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.

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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

Hamburg Port Authority
Neuer Wandrahm 4
20457 Hamburg
Tel: (+4940) 428470
Fax: (+4940) 428472
Website: www.hamburg-port-authority.de

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

Port of Hamburg
Buss Group
Hamburg Information

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