Trieste to Provide Alternative to Northern Ports
News Item Entered: Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Schenker has opened a new sea port terminal in the Italian city of Trieste. The facility is primarily designed to serve as a gateway for the continuing expansion of conventional sea freight transport. To this end, Schenker has signed an agreement with the Trieste port authorities, who want to considerably extend the range of options for using the port by improving the road and rail pre-carriage infrastructure. The target groups for the new services are industrial and trading companies in Austria and Southeastern Europe. Schenker will support the development of connections, in particular the rail connections, between the port and Austria, Bavaria and Southeastern Europe.
"The idea is that Trieste will also offer customers from Germany and Southeastern Europe an alternative to the Northern ports. This is particularly important in view of the forthcoming EU enlargement," says Elmar Wieland, Regional Manager South East Europe at Schenker AG and CEO of the Austrian Schenker & Co. AG. Trieste is around 2,000 sea miles closer than the North Sea ports to the Far East. A further advantage of the new Schenker terminal are the shorter pre-carriage routes between plant and port, and this means cheaper overall freight transport compared to the Northern ports. Not to mention the cost advantages from the shorter pre-carriage routes that will be subject to road pricing from 2004.
Schenker's logistics facility at the Scalo Legnami terminal has a total area of 18,500 square meters. The Trieste port authorities plan to install two new quay cranes on the quay system, which is 345 meters long and has a depth of up to 11 meters. Thanks to the direct rail and road connections, pre-carriage and onward carriage can be scheduled by both truck and train. At the Scalo Legnami terminal, Schenker will offer the full sea freight service portfolio as well as logistics and value added services like customs clearance, cross-docking, order picking and labeling of goods.
The Austrian and Italian Schenker organizations will cooperate closely in handling the operational side of business. "We will integrate the new services in our portfolio for the Italian market. This will further strengthen the already excellent position of Schenker in the Italian sea freight market," says Lorenzo Papa, Managing Director of Schenker Italiana S.p.A. "This applies in particular to the Friuli-Venetia Julia region, which is home to the Schenker locations Trieste and Udine."
Trieste is currently extending the port terminal of Scalo Legnami by a total 70 million square meters at a cost of Euro 50 million, with the aim of boosting the competitiveness of the port. The Italian government has made funds available in the order of Euro 560 million for improvements to the rail connections, the road network and the logistics platform in the port.
The port facility has an overall area of 2,304,000 square meters, 1,765,000 square meters of which have been declared a free port zone. The total storage area measures 925,000 square meters, including a sealed and covered area of 500,000 square meters. The port in Trieste comprises 12 quays and 47 operative berths. The rail network in the port has a total length of 75 kilometers, and all quays have a direct rail connection.
With annual sales of Euro 6.4 billion, 36,000 employees and about 1,100 offices around the world, the Stinnes subsidiary Schenker is one of the world's leading providers of integrated logistics services, offering land transport, air and sea freight as well as comprehensive logistics solutions and global supply chain management from a single source. Stinnes is a Deutsche Bahn AG company.