The port of Antwerp is striking in its scale. It is the second largest seaport in Europe. First place for Rotterdam. To moor at its moorings, huge ocean-going vessels are forced to cover a distance of 90 kilometers against the course of the Scheldt River, which flows into the North Sea. The enterprise itself miraculously combines the modern achievements of science and technology and traditional features. So, on its territory there is an operating ... tavern! It was here that throughout the history of the port the most important trade deals were concluded, and the agreements were supported by strong whiskey.
General information
The history of the port is rooted in the Middle Ages. Even then, at this place of growth of impressive size, the pier, to which ships moored from all over Europe.
The port of Antwerp is, without exaggeration, a city-forming enterprise. Yes, that there is a city-forming! He makes a significant contribution to filling the Belgian treasury.
In recent decades, the trend towards an increase in the displacement and tonnage of ocean-going vessels has only intensified. Modern ships have difficulty navigating the river. The management is forced to spend significant funds on deepening and expanding the mouth of the river so that large modern vessels can call at the port. The problem is not new. On the one hand, the mouth of the river reliably shelters ships in the port from stormy ocean waves, on the other hand, such a geographical location requires regular cleaning of the bottom of river silt.
In addition, shipowners directing ships to the port of Antwerp incur quite noticeable expenses for paying for the services of a pilot and tugboats during shunting operations. Nevertheless, the growth rate of freight turnover shows a positive trend. The company does not experience financial difficulties.
The path from the sea to the port's berths is rather thorny, and the channel itself is a technically complex engineering structure, which every resident of Belgium can rightfully be proud of. The port of Antwerp is located relatively high above sea level. Therefore, ships must overcome as many as six locks on the way to the long-awaited land for the entire crew.
Port of Antwerp in numbers
If you add up the length of all the marinas and cargo berths, you get about 160 kilometers (!). The services of the port are used not only by large ocean-going ships, but also by ships of a relatively small displacement of the river-sea class.
The number of cargo cranes is 387 pieces.
More than 20,000 ships from more than eight hundred ports scattered throughout the globe enter the port annually.
According to last year, the port handled more than 158 million tons of various cargoes. Antwerp Port is a multifunctional transport hub. It is equipped with everything necessary for the reception and transshipment of a wide variety of cargoes: containers, bulk (gasoline, oil and oil products), various bulk cargoes (mineral fertilizers, various raw materials) and so on.
Oil Refining Center
One of the main cargoes of this port is oil and oil products. By the way, four oil refineries were built right on the territory of the port. All refining industry in Belgium is concentrated in this territory. All ingenious is simple. So it is with these plants: such a solution makes it possible to increase the efficiency of enterprises by an order of magnitude and reduce the cost of processing by saving on transportation of crude oil.
The refineries themselves are truly gigantic in scope. They are decorated with tall chimneys at the end of which tongues of flame burn. Surprisingly, it is a fact: instead of using gas produced in the oil refining process for useful purposes (generating electricity, heating water, etc.), it is simply burned.
Transport and infrastructure
The length of railways designed to serve the port industry is more than 1000 kilometers. Every day about 200 freight trains (or 3.5 thousand wagons) enter the territory of the port.
Thanks to the developed canal network, cargo ships and passenger boats from Liège and the Rhine can enter the port of Antwerp on the rivers. Thus, the port occupies a unique geographical position and is a strategically important transport hub for the whole of Europe. So containers from ocean vessels can be loaded onto smaller river ships and delivered to the developed industrial regions of Europe - the Ruhr region (Germany), certain territories of France and Switzerland.
The container transporting
Antwerp noticeably crowded out its competitors in terms of container shipping. In the distant 1980, container transportation of Antwerp amounted to only 38 percent of the level of Rotterdam. This indicator is currently comparable. This was made possible thanks to significant investments and capital injections in the construction of new container terminals. Currently, container terminals at the Antwerp port are rapidly increasing cargo flows.