Additional speakers for Hamburg conference
Coastlink, the independent organisation dedicated to the promotion of multimodal/ shortsea container services, has announced a number of new speakers who will join an already impressive line-up at its conference to be held in the Hotel Atlantic Kempinski, Hamburg on Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20thApril, 2011.
The opening session now sees Wolfgang Hurtienne setting the ball rolling. As managing director and head of strategy, Hamburg Port Authority, he is in a perfect position to outline the future of his port as it faces a host of challenges including the need to deepen the Elbe and to compete with the new deepwater container terminal being built at Wilhelmshaven.
Hamburg also wants to attract more shortsea shipping services. Key to this will be its ability to expand its hinterland, which for shortsea lines differs significantly from that served by the deepsea lines. While they are happy to serve many parts of Central/Southern Germany and Eastern Europe via the Elbe port, the shortsea lines have tended to use Rotterdam for the same regions.
Sascha Faber, Hamburg manager of DBR container transport, Deutsche Binnenreederei AG, will describe one expanding part of the port’s hinterland, namely the river Elbe where container barge transport is on the increase.
Two other very different German ports will also be showcased: Wilhelmshaven, where a huge new container terminal is being built, and Duisport, which has become a major success story on the Rhine. Describing the Wilhelmshaven development will be Torsten Meyer, Director Sales, Eurogate, while Heiko Rumfeld, Director, Duisport Agency GmbH, will explain how Duisport now manages an annual throughput of over two million TEU.
Baltic feeder networks have seen a lot of change in recent months. Economic factors saw a switch to hubbing in Rotterdam rather than Hamburg, only to move back to Hamburg some months later. The weather this winter has been severe too, leading to cancellations, port switches and surcharges as heavy ice disrupted operations. Meanwhile the ‘Russia effect’ still causes uncertainty as no-one seems willing or able to forecast future traffic flows through St Petersburg and the other Baltic port gateways. Speakers in this second session include Egor Govorukhin, Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, National Container Company, Russia, and Hans-Christian Mordhorst, Chief Commercial Officer, Team Lines.
Having prompted much discussion about the need for innovation in shortsea containership design when he spoke last year at Coastlink’s Antwerp conference, Alexander Saverys, Managing Director, Delphis NV takes the chairman’s role for the third session, which ranges across diverse subjects such as bunkers, main engine emissions, ship design and propulsion systems.
Speakers include Ian Adams, Chief Executive, International Bunker Industry Association, Roel van Eijle, product director, Damen Shipyards, Rotterdam and Mathias Reimann, Walther Möller & Co, Hamburg.
After a short coffee break Alexander Saverys will then give his own views on these subjects both as a shipowner and a shortsea operator, before Dr Johann Killinger, Managing Partner of Buss Capital and Buss Group, discusses the thorny question of ship finance, without which there will be no new ships!.
Industry pressure is encouraging Coastlink into extending its fields of interest south to Iberia, the Mediterranean, Black Sea and North Africa. Among the speakers in this session will be Till Ole Barrelet,, Managing Director, OPDR , who will focus on the development of the European shortsea reefer market.
