Doubling decision APM Maasvlakte postponed

On the expansion of the APM Terminal (APMT) in the Amaliahaven on the Maasvlakte, the final decision has been postponed until the end of the year, thanks in part to rising material costs.
The group had planned to complete the doubling of the APMT2 terminal by the middle of this year, but a sharp rise in steel and contractor prices, among others, meant that a final decision could not be made now. For instance, the price of steel shot up, having a major impact on the price of cranes and other equipment. As a result, a new business plan had to be drawn up for the project, involving an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Spokesman Jan Driessen: “This action has been taken to enable us to make an investment decision in the fourth quarter.“ The project will first be discussed in the Danish group’s hub board. If approved, the project will be sent to the board for a final decision.

APMT, part of shipping company Maersk, has been working for years on a project to double the current terminal at Amaliahaven. The works council adopted a renovation plan for the terminal at the end of March, after a lengthy consultation process. The premise is that the same workforce of over 500 employees could handle twice as many containers per year. As it stands, the terminal handles more than 1.1 million containers a year.

It is not entirely clear how much new capacity will be added. It should at least be enough to handle 800,000 containers a year from parent company Maersk. This volume is currently handled at the former APM Terminal Rotterdam (APMTR), which was sold to Hutchison Ports last year and then renamed Hutchison Ports Delta II.
When the terminal was sold in the middle of last year, Maersk promised the former APMTR to process 800,000 containers per year. This guarantee expires in mid-2026, after which Maersk will move the package to APMT2.

Since the construction of the terminal at Maasvlakte 2, which opened in 2015, the APM terminal has had expansion opportunities. Earlier last year, the Port of Rotterdam Authority commissioned a consortium of construction companies including Hochtief, Ballast Nedam and Van Oord to build and new deep-sea wall totalling 1.8 kilometres along Amaliahaven. About half of this is for the APMT terminal and the other half for expansion at the Rotterdam World Gateway (RWG) which is opposite APMT.