Following its first visit to a trade fair in China, Seaports of Niedersachsen reports significant interest from participants in the group’s capabilities to handle wind energy project cargoes.
“The Chinese market offers many opportunities for us as a specialist in general and project cargoes,” said Jorge Kaplan of J Müller Breakbulk Terminal GmbH & Co. KG. “We need to establish ourselves here and present our seaports to the Chinese as reliable partners for handling and storage,” said Andreas Bullwinkel, managing director of Seaports of Niedersachsen GmbH .
Five ports within the group – Brake, Cuxhaven, Emden, Wilhelmshaven, Stade are already heavily involved in the production and logistics for wind turbines and ideally located to serve offshore wind farms being developed in the North Sea.
In Cuxhaven, for example, STRABAG AG expects to produce annually up to 100 fully assembled wind power plants which will be helped by the expansion of the Cuxhaven port facilities with two additional berths.
Emden anticipates handling 240 wind turbines for various wind farms in the North Sea in the coming years and Stade is the production base for wind energy components of the company Areva and Prokon.
Wilhelmshaven was already involved in the construction of the first German offshore wind farm – Alpha Ventus.
The Seaports of Niedersachsen represents the nine Lower Saxon seaports with numerous port handling service companies, supra-regionally operating logistics networks and specialists for port services of all kinds. Together the port locations on the rivers Elbe, Weser, Jade and Ems form one of the most significant German cargo hubs.
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Source: heavyliftpfi, June 11, 2010;