By Paul Richardson, AJOTEUROGATE has emerged as one of Europe’s leading container terminal and logistics groups since its formation back in September 1999, when Hamburg’s, EUROKAI, a traditional and well-established name in Germany’s container shipping sector, and Bremerhaven’s, logistics company, BLG Logistics Group joined forces. EUROGATE, together with the Contship Italia Group, operate a portfolio of container terminals through northern and southern Europe, as well as North Africa. Fittingly, 13-years later almost to the day, EUROGATE has once again, underlined its name in the global market place, with a landmark event which saw the official inauguration of Germany’s first deepwater container terminal, known as the Jade Weser Terminal at Wilhelmshaven take place. Jade Weser is being constructed with the help of a financial investment totalling US$1.6bn, of which US$845m has been contributed by the states of Lower Saxony and Bremen. The new terminal is a joint venture between EUROGATE and APM Terminals, and the EUROGATE investment in the new project comes out as US$455m. But despite the original belief that the Wilhelmshaven blueprints were being drawn up with local port competition written all over them, this in fact, is far from the truth, as EUROGATE Container Terminal Wilhelmshaven, EUROGATE CTW), managing director, Mikkel Andersen recently pointed out. “EUROGATE CTW has not been built with competitiveness in mind, and we do not have the capacity to be a medium or long term threat to Hamburg or Bremerhaven. “At Wilhelmshaven, we are offering our customers a cost effective alternative on the German North Sea Coast, and with capabilities and capacities enabling us to handle vessels up to 18,000 teu, we believe that CTW comes at the right time.” The new terminal will be constructed in a series of phases, and under the first part of the Phase 1 development, will initially have 1,000m of quayside equipped with eight super post-panamax gantry cranes and a back up on-dock equipment portfolio that includes, 36 diesel-electric straddle carriers from Terex. The second part of the Phase 1 development project, slated for completion in September 2013, comprises an extension of the quayside by another 725m. Right now, there is an approved annual capacity of 2.7m teu under the first phase development programme, although this figure is expected to increase to 3.5m teu with all dockside cranes installed. One of the big plus points of Wilhelmshaven comes from its inland distribution potential through first class road networks and constantly improved rail works that feed cargo to and from the major industrial centres of Germany. Unlike ports such as Hamburg and Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven has little or no inland waterway connections, but the shoreside inland plus points adequately make up for any possible downsides from the lack of river conduits. Most recently, EUROGATE CTW welcomed its third seagoing service through the terminal complex. Importantly all three services are operated by Maersk, either directly or via subsidiary companies, including European feeder network, Seago Line. But the status of EUROGATE CTW is a common user facility, and just because AP Moller-Maersk terminal operator, APM Terminals has a stake in the Wilhelmshaven terminal, does not mean Maersk can be the sole service provider through EUROGATE CTW. Indeed, Maersk’s service restriction has a cut off of less than 50%, and thus the common user facility nomenclature kicks in even more prolifically. It is no secret that in some cases, Bremerhaven is working up to full capacity at its container terminal facilities. EUROGATE and Maersk Line have a 50:50 joint venture in place at the North Sea Terminal Bremerhaven (NTB), with Maersk as the dedicated service provider. According to the latest statistics available from EUROGATE, 2011 saw throughput reach just over 5.9m teu. One of the services calling weekly at NTB is Maersk’s Asia/Europe AE10 service, which presently deploys a mix o