As of today, a beautiful red Gottwald crane rises proudly over the Laurenshaven terminal in the Botlek. This 50-ton crane has a reach of more than 51 meters, and is capable of lifting products in and out of all of a ship’s holds. The Gottwald 6 is a welcome addition to the terminal’s existing stock of mobile and floating cranes. The new crane is also desperately needed in order to make optimal use of the major expansion of the closed storage capacity to more than 800,000 m3 in 2020. The crane was assembled in less than five weeks, and is now fully operational.

With the new crane, the construction of three multi-purpose warehouses with a combined capacity of 126,000 m3 (the first of which will be operational as of this summer), and the grant of a permit for the construction of a warehouse at the Europoort terminal, we are taking a big step forward in the realisation of our EBS Master Plan. When the permit is finalised, we will immediately begin construction on the 50,000 m3 warehouse at the Europoort terminal. The new warehouse space is needed as desperately as the new crane, as all of our warehouses have been contracted out to customers for the foreseeable future.