The 5th anniversary of DCT Gdansk
The success timeline

22.10.2012

The true magic of dates. They not only reflect the rapid growth of container services in the Gdansk port, but also the determination of the people who have recognized the future of the new maritime transport technology.

The launch of the first container terminal in the port - Gdansk Container Terminal (GCT) - required some visionary thinking on the part of its founders. The way had already been cleared for the "Founding Fathers" of the DCT deepwater container terminal. While GCT being rather small in size, taking up less than 7 hectares of land reclaimed from the sea, has been unable to present much in terms of potential for growth, the more than six times larger DCT has enjoyed unrestrained development perspectives. Nonetheless, the Gdansk-based "tiny little thing" has already remained in operation for 14 years, providing due consideration to its clients' interest and convenience, and thus maintaining its brand of a client-friendly port facility. DCT, on the other hand, has taken advantage of the possibility to accommodate the largest vessels that can pass the Danish Straits. Supported by substantial investments, its position soon proved to bear fruit.

In January 2004, PGA SA signed with DCT Gdansk a contract providing grounds for the Governor of the Region of Pomerania to grant a permission for constructing a terminal. It was still too early at that stage to provide any precise estimates regarding the cost of the project, its delivery schedules or pace of work, to choose a single development option and to identify the realistic volume projections of the required throughput capacity. The documents were finally approved on 25 April 2005, effectively giving way to the German contractor company of "Hochtief", appointed from among five other bidders, to commence the construction work. The design was developed by the consortium BPBM "Projmors" in conjunction with the Gdansk-based companies of "Wuprohyd" and "North-Investments". The choice of the contractor relied on their extensive experience in developing port facilities in Bremerhaven and Hamburg, South Africa, Seabird in India, Oman, Kelang and Malaysia. The construction work was commenced on an 840 metres long and 640 metres wide man-made pier designed to handle a targeted annual capacity of one million TEU. At the same time, the British investor DCT together with the City of Gdansk and PGA SA signed a letter of intent expressing the intention of developing on an adjacent area of more than 100 hectares of land a Logistics and Distribution Centre, which along with DCT was to become a key link in the transportation network connecting the EU countries with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Following over two years of preliminary work, the construction of a container terminal at the Port of Gdansk entered the decisive phase of its development. On 26 January 2007, m/v "Traveller" brought from Ireland 1,000 tonnes of "Liebherr" gantry cranes, thus beginning the process of providing DCT with state-of-the-art container handling equipment. It was then estimated that containers accounted for as much as 70 percent of the total goods shipped by sea worldwide. Gdansk's pursuit of the prevailing shipping trend required that the port was connected as quickly as possible with the A1 Motorway, and that work was launched on projects including the construction of the Sucharskiego and Slowackiego Routes and the railway bridge on the Motlawa River, as well as the modernisation of the railway track to Pruszcz Gdanski and the drilling of a tunnel under the port canal.

On 30 May 2007, PCC Rail SA - one of Poland's major privately-owned rail companies - brought the first batch of containers to DCT. Four days later, the load was picked up by the Team Lines-operated m/v Götaland, launching the operation of the container terminal in the port of Gdansk. This was also the beginning of a race aimed at making the maximum profit from the advantageous location of the facility. The potential represented by DCT was duly recognized by the world's leading container shipping company - the Maersk group. According to the agreement made with DCT, as of 1 December 2008, the terminal was to receive every week not less than two Maersk carriers. However, even including the Happag-Lloyd-owned m/v Racha Bhum, with its 2,732 TEU capacity being the biggest ever handled by DCT, these were still rather small-sized vessels.

The terminal's first anniversary was marked by the attendance of delegates representing a large number of world renowned forwarding and shipping companies. Only few of them at that time could predict that the cargo operation which was then completed on a Maersk Line carrier adding splendour to the anniversary celebration, would herald rapid changes coming to DCT. It was to this very terminal that Maersk relocated its entire operational activity in Poland. The pier was further equipped with three more gantry cranes in addition to the five RTG gantry cranes already in operation. Towards the end of 2009, DCT provided services to lines such as Unifeeder, Containerships, Team Lines, IMCL-BCL and the Maersk Line which - much to the shock of the shipping business circles - announced the launch, as of December, of a regular transcontinental service to Shanghai operated by the world's largest container carriers.

On the early morning of 20 November 2009, the Gdansk stevedores exceeded the throughput volumes forecast in their annual outlooks. A significant share of that result was credited to DCT, which attained 70 percent growth compared to the previous year. The terminal, which had proved itself safe to the vessels serviced and was ice-free and accessible all the year round, opened up to the Gdansk port the perspective of securing a leading position among the state-of-the-art port facilities on the Southern Baltic. The incredible became a reality on 4 January 2010 when, upon her 34 days' voyage from China, Maersk Taikung, with a carrying capacity of 8,400 containers, called at the Gdansk port. This ground breaking event inaugurated a direct weekly container service from the Far East and - according to the comments of that time - was bound to decide the course of the Port of Gdansk's future, as was the case with the launching of the coal and fuel piers of the Northern Port 35 years before. The Australian fund of the Macquarie Group of Companies - by way of their investments in Gdansk - made it possible to prove false the sarcastic opinion that... Poland's best ranking container port is... Hamburg in Germany!

With the DCT's clients in mind, PGA SA launched, as of 20 January 2010, a state-of-the-art Veterinary Border Inspection Post adjacent to the terminal and developed by the DORACO Building Corporation. The comprehensive range of services offered by the port coupled with the increasingly efficient operations provided by DCT won the trust and confidence of more shipping companies, such as NYK, Cosco, China Shipping, Hamburg Sud, ZIM, Hyundai, MOL, K-Line, UASC and Evergreen. Throughout the year 2010, the Deepwater Container Terminal almost trebled its turnover posted over the previous year. The record breaking volume of 27.2 tonnes of goods handled in the Gdansk port included containerized general cargo, with its volume of 450 tonnes TEU handled by DCT alone and ranking second only to liquid fuels. Towards the year's end, the idea regarding a logistics base to be provided on PGA SA premises and tailored to the demands of the port facility and the region was taking substantial shape. On 17 December, an agreement was signed between the city company InvestGDA and the Australian company Goodman Polska pertaining to the construction of a Pomeranian Logistics Centre.

Several months later, on 11 May 2011, DCT received Maersk Elba - a container-carrier with a carrying capacity of 13,000 containers, on which occasion the efficiency and skill of the Gdansk port workers were successfully tested. Henceforth, the Asia-Europe container service to Gdansk was handled exclusively by the largest carriers operated by Denmark's container shipping giant, including the Emma Maersk class vessels that can simultaneously load up to 15,500 TEU. Each of their calls generated an increased inbound and outbound container shipping traffic operated by feeder carriers between Gdansk and other seaports of the entire Baltic Sea. 29 June of that year saw DCT complete the handling of its millionth container and in consequence - after less than three years of its operation - becoming Poland's leading seaport facility. With each consecutive week, A.P. Moller-Maersk confirmed the correctness of their decision of including Gdansk in their network of primary container ports in Europe. The assessment of the growth rate in the exchange of goods between Asia and Europe revealed very positive perspectives for the operation in Gdansk of a Baltic Container Hub, which induced the new Maersk Polska Head of East Central Europe, Thomas Bagge, to present yet another idea aimed at increasing their fleet share operating on this route. Asia's four seaports: Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian and Tanjug Pelepas together with three European seaports: Felixtowe, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven have been covered by a new service with a guarantee of daily calls by the ships operating the AE10 service and providing timely schedules of cargo handling. This measure has not only strengthened the guarantee of maintaining the direct connections with Gdansk, but has also boosted the turnover. The port in Gdansk is now handling annual cargo volumes worth more than PLN 100 billion.

The DCT management is not only making continuous investments in the cargo handling equipment and machinery, but has also requested PGA SA to endorse and support their container facility expansion plans. A change in the maritime transport geography of the Baltic Sea - including containers - which was framed 40 years ago by the visionary shipping forerunners of Gdansk, professors Jerzy Zaleski and Czeslaw Wojewodka, has become a reality. They coined the notion of the "Baltic Europe" focused on the port of Gdansk which, thanks to a broad variety of its natural advantages, is now regaining its rank and position wielded during the "Golden Age".

1 October 2012 marked the laying of the foundation stone of the Pomeranian Logistics Centre. On that day, DCT handled its 650,000th container this year. In addition to motor vehicles taking advantage of the port's increasingly better road access infrastructure, the terminal is also serviced by two dedicated railway lines running to the dry ports in Katy Wroclawskie and in Slawkow. The immediate plans envisage providing further railway connections to Moscow and Ukraine. The time has returned when profits can be drawn again from the advantages that have determined the competitive edge represented by the port of Gdansk for more than a thousand years.

A few days ago, DCT celebrated its fifth anniversary. This is the fastest growing container hub in the Baltic Sea, holding a share of more than 57 percent of Poland's container shipping market. Its throughput capacity, which has been recently expanded by a new storage facility, enables the annual handling of ca. 1.25 million TEU. Efforts are being finalised with a view to expanding the capacity of the deepwater container facility in the Gdansk port up to 4.5 million TEU. The DCT success timeline demonstrates that the so-called "geographical rent" presented by the port of Gdansk is set to bring fast profits to each and every business partner willing to make here the investments entailing their assets and solid work.

Janusz Kasprowicz
PGA SA PR Officer