EUROGATE PORT GROUP REPORTS 7.7-MILLION TEU VOLUME

EUROGATE PORT GROUP REPORTS 7.7-MILLION TEU VOLUME    Eurogate, the German port and inland transport group, reported a 20.5-percent increase in its global port throughput for 2000, to 7.7 million TEUs.
   The figure includes the handling volume of the group’s container terminals in Germany, Italy and Portugal. Eurogate said that its 20.5-percent volume increase compares with a general market growth rate of only 7.5 percent.
   Eurogate’s group revenues rose to DM648.5 million ($309 million) last year, from DM581 million in 1999. Group profit was DM42 million ($20 million), up from DM40 million in the previous year.
   The group’s container terminal in Gioia Tauro saw container traffic increase by 18 percent last year, to 2.65 million TEUs. The container terminal in La Spezia in northern Italy increased by 8.5 percent, to 781,000 TEUs last year.
   In Portugal, Eurogate’s container terminal in Lisbon achived a volume increase of 28 percent, to 173,000 TEUs.
   In Germany, Eurogate handled 1.3 million TEUs in Hamburg last year, up by 22 percent, and 2.7 million TEUs in Bremerhaven, up 26 percent.
   Eurogate said that it is now the third largest independent container terminal operator in the world, behind the Hutchison Port Holdings and PSA Corp. groups.
   In a separate announcement, Eurogate said that it supports the development of Wilhelmshaven as Germany’s third large container port. The German port group said that container-handling facilities in Bremerhaven and Hamburg will not have the necessary capacity to cope with the growth in container traffic beyond the year 2010.
   “Restrictions on shipping channels in the Outer Weser and Lower Elbe mean that, even if further deepening works were carried out, the mega-carriers of the future will not be able to dock irrespective of tides,” Eurogate said.
   Wilhelmshaven is located west of Bremerhaven.