Amsterdam Container Terminals, is to close, capping a doomed decade-long bid to shake off its White Elephant image and attract deep-sea container ships to a port just an hour’s drive from Rotterdam, Europe’s top container hub.
The decision by the terminal’s owners, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports Holdings, to throw in the towel, leaves Amsterdam, Europe’s fifth largest port, without a presence in the fastest-growing cargo sector.
The terminal, originally owned by the New York-based Ceres group, opened for business in 2001 but didn’t attract any regular services for four years despite boasting a novel indented berth that allowed it to load and unload vessels simultaneously from both sides. Amsterdam’s bid to break into the big time container league appeared to be on track after NYK, a Japanese ocean carrier and member of the Grand Alliance shipping consortium, acquired a minority stake in 2002 and then bought out the original investor Christos Kritikos, in late 2006.
Amsterdam’s box traffic surged more than 10 percent in 2008 to 425,000 20-foot-equivalent units while Rotterdam’s throughput stalled.
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