Page 24 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 02.24

PAGE 24
ALL-PURPOSE PORT PORT OF HAMBURG MAGAZINE 2/24
go from the trains,” Reidock stresses.
The company began specialising in fertiliser in the 1990s. Thanks to Ger- man reunification, Piesteritz nitro- gen works (SKW) from Saxony-An- halt could be won over as the first major customer. Their factory is around 400 kilometres away on the Elbe. With a handling contract signed, it was already possible for Hagel to handle enormous quanti- ties for the entire urea export busi- ness of SKW in the first few years. As a result, there was soon demand for storage space. “I invested 8 mil- lion deutschmarks here in 1998, as I always saw prospects for the fu- ture,” Hagel explains.
Silo 1 was constructed in 1998. With optimal capacity utilisation, it offers a capacity of around 25,000 tonnes in total with overfill in the four separate boxes. A scraper is used to push the product up to form a material cone in the silo, allowing it to be stored care- fully and without dust forming.
It is possible to load ships of up to 220 metres in length and 28 metres in width.
When Hagel looks east out of the window, he can see a 104-metre-long black pontoon spanning 2,400 square metres, which is used for exporting fertiliser. After being constructed in Belgium, it was towed here via the North Sea. The pontoon is called Catharina since it arrived in Hamburg on his daughter’s birthday. The company has used it to create a floating quay wall not otherwise found on the premises.
A pipe system that extends 60 metres into the Reiher- stieg quay establishes a link to the ship loader with conveyor belts. This can be moved on the pontoon and makes it possible to load ships of up to 220 me- tres in length and 28 metres in width. The water is 11 metres deep here. A ship was dispatched with a load of 40,000 tonnes here for the first time in 2020.
The crane berth can accommodate ships with a draught of up to
eleven metres.
If Hagel looks further towards Hamburg, he can see a crane mooring for seafaring vessels and inland ships behind. The import business lay dormant for a while as the water depth was no longer sufficient for larger seafaring vessels. However, a win-win deal was reached with the HPA in 2014. The dilapidated em- barkment was redeveloped and the construction of a new crane in deeper water was funded. Due to the ad- ditional investment of around 5 million euros, seafar- ing vessels can now also be dispatched here – with water depth of up to 11 metres.
In April 2024, a ship was then dispatched with a 37,000-tonne load for the first time at the crane moor- ing. With a maximum width of 11 metres and a length of 100 metres, inland ships can tether beside a seafar- ing vessel beneath the floating crane platform. Incom- ing goods can therefore be transhipped across ves- sels, stored in silos as well as loaded into trucks and rail cars after weighing.
Transhipment to trucks, rail cars and container ships For the import business, a 12-tonne grab crane is used to drop goods from a slight height over a hopper at
© Louis Hagel ©HHLA