The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Trading gateway
Scottish port handles £6bn of goods annually
Ports are a vital part of the infrastructure and represent Scotland’s gateway to the world.
The port of Grangemouth is one of the largest freight hubs, handling more than £6 billion worth of goods each year, including spirits, food, steel plate, chemicals, timber, paper, onshore renewables and equipment for the oil and gas industry.
Last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first container vessel to call at a UK port for transporting Scotch whisky to the US.
Over the past 50 years, the port has grown through continual investment in infrastructure and equipment.
The port is well connected by road, rail and sea.
And while we are on the east coast, by road we are closer to Glasgow than Edinburgh.
By sea we manage regular container services to Rotterdam, Antwerp, Felixstowe and Hamburg.
Most of the major lines use these feeder services to link with larger container vessels moving between the world’s major ports.
Short sea shipping is also carried on weekly services for onward transportation.
With such a network, the port of Grangemouth is considered a gateway to the world for Scottish exporters and importers.
Scotland has a strong reputation for the quality of our fresh produce, and this has resulted in increased demand for refrigerated container capacity in Grangemouth.
We are Scotland’s refrigerated container port, principally for Scotland’s fresh food exporters.
Refrigerated containers – “reefers” – require power immediately upon arrival at the port to keep their contents fresh until they are loaded onto vessels for export or collected by haulage firms for delivery across Scotland.
In October and November last year, we recorded a 30% increase in reefers, and during November the port handled a record 1,400 reefers.
The bulk were used for the export of Scottish potato “tattie” seed to far-flung places around the world including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco, Thailand, China and Namibia.
A major investment programme was completed last year to increase the main container terminal’s capacity for storage.
This included surface upgrading works on an area of some 6,325 sq m.
This investment has increased our terminal’s total capacity to 12,000 TEUs (the industry standard container size of 20ft equivalent units) – a 50% increase since 2005 – which also delivers operational efficiencies to our landside and shipside operations.
The resurfacing works at the terminal included the construction of a concrete pavement that has created additional storage lanes for laden containers.
This work represents the second phase of a five-year investment plan to improve the terminal’s storage capabilities.
It is expected our capacity will grow by a further 10% over the five-year period, in line with market demand.
Further investment is planned, with a third phase of improvements due to start later this year.
All this is to ensure Grangemouth container terminal continues to service the market demand.
The word “portcentric” is well known in the port trade, and at Grangemouth we are focusing our efforts on bringing a portcentric that will offer savings in money, time and carbon miles.
The idea behind portcentric is the opportunity for customers to import, store, distribute and export goods using the port as the hub with bespoke warehousing and logistics solutions.
Grangemouth’s location at the centre of Scotland’s main areas of production and consumption, its road, rail and sea links and its land availability make the perfect combination for further development as a logistics and distribution hub.