Positive developments at the KV terminal and planned expansion in Rotterdam Botlek
The Bertschi subsidiary in Rotterdam, located on Theemsweg in Botlek, right in the middle of the port of Rotterdam, now offers a storage capacity of 800 TEU hazardous goods containers and more than 1,500 TEU non-hazardous goods containers. Its close proximity to customers, port terminals, and the direct connection to the European rail network is one of the subsidiary’s key strategic advantages.
The various train and ship connections to continental Europe, together with the direct ship connection to Teesport (England), have ensured growth in the number of shipments and transshipments, adding more than 14,500 containers per year. A new connection was established between Bertschi Rotterdam and Vienna at the end of 2019. With three weekly departures, it has also become an integral part of the terminal’s service portfolio in 2020. Together with the A2B connection to England, a container that is loaded in Budapest can now be transported over 2,000 km to Teesport without ever having to use a public road. In addition to its good intermodal connections, its AEO certification and status as a bonded warehouse also make the Bertschi location in Rotterdam interesting for imports from overseas. It is therefore no great surprise that Rotterdam is one of the key import and export ports for Europe for BU Global.
Over recent years, and working together with large chemical producers, it has been possible to develop and implement various storage and call-off concepts at the terminal for liquid and free-flowing products. Concepts like these have enabled the storage to be used more profitably and capacity utilisation at the terminal has therefore increased. On average, there are around 1,300 containers in storage, of which nearly 500 are classified as hazardous substances. Together with the 80,000 transshipments required every year to be able to operate 14 intermodal connections per week, plus its storage concepts, the subsidiary has reached maximum capacity in the last few years. In anticipation of future demand, the adjoining plots of land, which have already been secured, will be developed next year in order to double the storage capacity. Once this expansion has been completed, the Bertschi terminal on Theemsweg in Rotterdam will be able to offer customers a storage capacity of 1,700 TEU ADR containers and around 3,500 TEU non-ADR containers.
