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London (I-Newswire) February 10, 2011 - Shipping Minister, MP Mike Penning, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, visited Teesport operator PD Ports yesterday, as part of a region-wide visit of the North East. Mr Penning, who is responsible for shipping, freight and logistics, was pleased to have the opportunity to tour Teesport, as the visit emphasises his message of the importance of portcentric and coastal shipping, which are seen as vital components in building and maintaining a strong UK economy.
The Minister visited PD Ports’ latest expansion project, undertaken by Hall Construction Services Ltd, which commenced at the beginning of this month. The new development will expand the port’s container handling capacity by almost 50%, helping to position Teesport as one of the UK’s major container hubs and building on a record growth in container volumes in 2010.
The visit also included a tour of MGT Power’s planned £400m Tees Renewable Energy Plant, on approved dockside land owned by PD Ports. The 300MW biomass power station will be one of the world's largest, generating enough electricity to power 600,000 homes.
David Robinson, PD Ports Group chief executive officer, said: “It has been a real honour to welcome the Minister to Teesside today. We have successfully demonstrated PD Ports’ developing capabilities as the business sees continued growth of the unitised and portcentric logistics sectors and an opening up of exciting emerging energy opportunities.
“Visits of this kind help our organisation work closely with Government, particularly the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Transport, to keep the port, as one of our region’s key assets and areas of investment potential, foremost in their minds.”
The tour concluded with the Minister visiting the ASDA distribution centre at Teesport, a large cornerstone development located on the PD Ports site. ASDA, which opened the first portcentric import centre at Teesport in 2006, has now considerably reduced the volume of company trucks on the already over-burdened UK road network, leading to a saving of over 1.2m road miles.
Shipping Minister Mike Penning said: "With the vast majority of goods arriving in the UK by sea, ports are a vital piece of our national infrastructure jigsaw. I was delighted to see the great work being done at Teesport - in particular the supermarket distribution centre which not only promotes coastal shipping but it also removes thousands of trucks from the nation’s roads. I also applaud their commitment to tackling climate change - really raising the bar for renewable energy production."
Mr Penning’s tour of Teesport follows a number of MP visits to PD Ports in the last month, with Tom Blenkinsop, Alex Cunningham, Ian Swales and James Wharton all having offered to back proposed development plans, in particular in helping to raise the profile of Hartlepool in the offshore wind energy sector. PD Ports has also taken its plans to the House of Commons where port representatives recently attended the All Party Ports and Maritime Group conference.
Engaging with the Government and its MPs is a vital component in highlighting the potential opportunities for PD Ports in this emerging sector, as well as the potential economic benefits for the North East region.
About PD Ports:
• PD Ports Limited is owned by Canadian based Brookfield. Brookfield is a global asset manager focused on property, renewable power and infrastructure assets, with over $100 billion of assets under management. PD Ports was bought by Brookfield in November 2009.
• PD Ports is a high performing specialist ports business offering a wide variety of supply chain services to improve customers’ international product and material movements into and out of – as well as within – the UK.
• PD Ports employs over 1200 members of staff, and generates an annual turnover of over £115 million from many UK locations.
• PD Ports operates throughout the UK from bases at many key ports and logistics centres.
• The 3 business interests of PD Ports are:
o Port Operations– is split into two business streams – bulks and unitised and includes:
Teesport: one of the top 4 UK ports, with flows of containers, bulk traffics and finished cars, handling almost 40 million tonnes of throughput p.a.
Humber & Small Ports: owners and/or operators of ports on the Humber estuary, Rivers Trent and Ouse, and at Medina Wharf, Isle of Wight. Service offerings include ships’ agency, chartering and stevedoring services.
Logistics: PD Logistics offers warehousing, recycling and distribution services at UK locations throughout the North East, Humberside & East Anglia, including at Felixstowe.
Development plans for port operations include:
• The Northern Gateway Container Terminal: a major new deep sea container terminal planned at Teesport on the South side of the River Tees. The £300+ million development will have a capacity of 1.5 million TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) and is anticipated to deliver over 5,500 jobs to the Tees Valley, when fully operational. Circa 1,300 of the 5,500 new jobs have already been created through portcentric logistics operations in the past four years.
• Portcentric Logistics: a concept promoted by PD Ports for locating the storage and distribution of imported goods close to the point of arrival at a UK port. This concept avoids the slow handling and return of empty containers as well as eradicating unnecessary UK road mileage, which occurs when delivering to a traditional inland import centre, such as in the Midlands.
In 2006 ASDA Wal*Mart opened a 360,000 sq ft import centre at Teesport and has saved more than 8 million road miles by adopting the portcentric concept. Adjacent to the ASDA facility, Tesco operates a purpose built 1.2 million sq ft import centre at Teesport, which opened in 2009. Tea and coffee specialists Taylors of Harrogate opened a purpose built warehouse facility at Teesport Commerce Park on the periphery of Teesport in 2010 to handle its UK imports.
o Conservancy – this includes:
Management of river traffic for the ports of Tees and Hartlepool, ensuring safe navigation and maintaining the required channel depth.
o Property– this includes:
Revenue and income from property and facilities owned by PD Ports and used by third party clients on long term leases.
Land that is not utilised for operational purposes and offers potential for development.
Port land at Hartlepool docks, which is highly attractive to the growing renewable energy sector, including offshore, windfarms, and biomass plants. PD Ports’ long term strategy is to further develop Hartlepool docks as a centre of excellence for the offshore support sector
Please visit www.pdports.co.uk
PD Ports contact: Rebecca English,
Interim PR & Communications Manager (Maternity Cover)
01642 877026 or 07423 433 603
news@pdports.co.uk
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