Changing trading patterns within the crude oil industry have led to changes in tanker berthing and oil storage arrangements at the Port of Rotterdam. The significance of the oil importing, storage and refining sectors to Rotterdam becomes clear when looking at the figures. Around 24% of throughput is crude oil, with five refineries located in the port.
Refineries beyond Rotterdam are supplied by just a few ports in the Hamburg to Le Havre range and Rotterdam’s market share is 55% of the 165 million tonnes annual figure for the range.
Around 50 different types of crude and gas condensate are imported into Rotterdam, cargoes being discharged at terminals in Europoort and Maasvlakte Olie Terminal (MOT) where blending takes place to refiner’s specifications.
A network of pipelines transfers the oil to various refineries, with around half destined for those in Rotterdam itself, the remainder going elsewhere, including Vlissingen, Antwerp and Germany.
Port expansion at Rotterdam is virtually continuous, but it is not simply about increasing capacity, it is also about adapting to changing trading patterns. In the past ten years, imports of crude oil have fluctuated between 92 and 102 million tonnes annually.
North Sea oil production has however fallen from over 40 million tonnes to less than 20 million tonnes over the same period, most of Rotterdam’s oil imports originating from Russia since 2003.
In 2011, Maasvlakte Olie Terminal (MOT) expanded its operation with the addition of three new tanks. Similar expansion is taking place at 7e Petroleumhaven, where Maatschap Europoort Terminal (MET), a partnership of Mafina BV and Ruhr Oel GmbH, is completing two additional 105,000m3 tanks in a project that includes 1.5km of new pipeline connection to the jetty.
Oil arriving at MET has two destinations, the Total refinery in Antwerp and the BP/Rosneft refinery in the Ruhr area of Germany. A decision on a possible third tank at the site is yet to be made.
Elsewhere in Rotterdam, in March this year work was completed deepening the berth at Shell jetty 104 in the Beneluxhaven. The ‘pocket’ for the jetty (an area 400m by 80m) has been deepened by 2m to -22.15m NAP.
The navigation path to the jetty has also been dredged and increased in depth by 0.5m to -22.15m NAP, allowing the very largest oil tankers with draughts of 22m to access the terminal, equating to an additional 30,000 tonnes of crude oil per ship.