International engineering and project management consultancy Royal Haskoning DHV has finalized the final and complete layout regarding the brand new onshore-offshore container terminal at the Port of Venice.
Venice Offshore-Onshore port system
The layout and equipment optimization process will contribute a great deal of capital and operating cost savings for the benefit of the Venice Port Authority. The financial community and ship operators were presented with these solutions at the beginning of December while at the Italian Embassy in London.
The integral piece concerning the new offshore port design is hidden in an innovative highly-sophisticated logistics concept involving several cranes, barges along with semi-submersible vessels. Playing the role of a continuous conveyor belt, containers are easily transferred from the offshore terminal to the onshore one and vice versa. This process will make it possible for the port to cancel-out ‘dead time’ during loading, unloading, and transfer procedures of the containers, and will also provide more flexibility during the peak operating hours.
The terminal will have a moving capacity of roughly 1 million TEUs per annum which is a large portion of the container volumes that are being projected for the Northern Adriatic Sea by the year 2030. By carrying out this project the Port of Venice will greatly contribute to the opening up of the Northern Adriatic to large ocean going ships. It will also help a great deal to the fostering process regarding the integration of Northern Adriatic ports into the core road and rail freight corridors of Europe.
Project Benefits
Captain Antonio Revedin, Director Strategic Planning and Development at the Venice Port Authority, commented: “The implemented design of the onshore-offshore terminal and the water transfer system have displayed performance results that easily match and even surpass those of the best container terminals in the whole world. Along with making these significant expenditure cuts, the manner in which the terminal itself will operate will generate quite a long list of benefits. With it we will manage to fully accommodate the newest ‘super-sized’ container ships, as well as greatly reduce travel time, be able to operate at full capacity without having to double handle, and manage with maximum flexibility. We believe that now we stand in a very good position to initiate the follow-up phase of the project.”
The development of such a terminal able to handle Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV) at the original location of the port was simply not feasible due to the port’s set of unique characteristics along with the regulatory and environmental constraints regarding the development of navigation channels within the Venice Lagoon.