In the United Kingdom (UK), the Port of Hull recently celebrated a milestone by completing the largest shipment of wood pellets ever handled at ABP’s Dry Bulks Terminal. The Port successfully discharged nearly 30 000 tonnes from the 200 metre Isadora vessel, destined for the Drax Power Station in Selby.
Fully complete in over 77 hours, including stoppages, the weather-sensitive cargo of compressed wood pellets was directly loaded to lorries and the remainder of stock is stored in the state-of-the-art 26 Shed.
It’s important to work in partnership with our customers to enable them to grow and achieve fundamental business objectives. Our highly-skilled teams and continuing investment in infrastructure are vital factors in ensuring we can always offer the best possible services to our customers, said ABP Humber Director, Simon Bird.
The Port of Hull is home to a dedicated rail-load-out facility for Drax and in 40 minutes it can load a train with 1 600 tonnes of wood pellets. Up to 17 biomass trains per week can deliver fuel to Drax from the Port of Hull.
Developing a supply chain able to deliver the sustainable biomass in the quantities required was central to us being able to convert two-thirds of the power station to use biomass instead of coal, transforming the business to become the largest decarbonisation project in Europe. We have supported investment of £300 million (≈ EUR 346.5 million) in our port facilities and our operations support 5 700 jobs in the supply chain in the north and contribute £600 million (≈ EUR 692.9 million) to the region’s economy. The Port of Hull is an important part of the Drax supply chain, and continues to handle biomass for us in a safe and reliable manner, said Mark Gibbens, Head of Logistics at Drax.
The terminal is seeing increased business, and 2018 saw a strong performance with the UK’s leading crop production and grain marketing business – Frontier Agriculture.
Access to efficient import and export services is important to us as it enables us to manage the grain supply chain effectively for our farmer and grain consumer customers. ABP has provided vital support to this aspect of our business; handling up to three times more throughput than planned last year and at times exceeding the expected tonnes-per-hour performance rate by up to 50 percent, said Richard Pollard, Operations Director, Frontier Agriculture.
Other significant terminal investments include the introduction of the new in-house haulage team and state-of-the-art tipper trucks in July 2018.
