The port of Rotterdam has secured a €450 million ($667 million) from a consortium of Dutch banks including Fortis (FORSY), Rabobank International and ING.
According to the Port of Rotterdam Authority, the loan, the third big one secured within a month, is to be used mainly for its Maasvlakte 2 greenfield expansion project.
The European Investment Bank and Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten (BNG) had earlier announced loans of €900 million ($1.3 billion) and €450 million ($667 million) respectively for the port.
Currently, BNG, Fortis, Rabobank and ING have also agreed to provide €50 million ($74 million) as working capital for the port.
A development agreement for Rotterdam's new €900 million ($1.3 billion) container terminal, the Rotterdam World Gateway (RWG), had been officially signed in September last year by port officials and the five member RWG consortium.
The agreement covers building the superstructure, equipping and operating the new terminal at the Maasvlakte 2 greenfield development.
The RWG five member consortium consists of DP World, APL Ltd., Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. (MOL), Hyundai Merchant Marine Pte. Ltd. and the CMA CGM Group. The new terminal will be the first to be set up on the greenfield site.
Its facilities are scheduled to have a capacity of some four million TEUs along with a 1,900-metre long deep-sea quay with a depth of 20 metres, a 550-metre quay for inland shipping and feeder vessels and its own rail terminal with a connection to the Betuwe rail freight project.
It is scheduled to be phased into operation from 2013 onwards.
According to CNN Money, the total investment needed for Maasvlakte 2, which includes the construction of two liquified natural gas terminals in the harbour, is €3 billion ($4.5 billion).
Some reports say that Rotterdam port, the Dutch government and several companies have agreed to invest a total of €12 billion ($17.8 billion) in the port over the next five years.
An estimated 6.4% rise from 2006 throughput volumes for 2007 made Rotterdam the first European port to handle more than 400 million tonnes of cargo in a year.
2007 also saw Rotterdam become the first European facility to handle 10 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in a year, with container throughput jumping 12% to 10.8 million TEUs.
“It was quantitatively and qualitatively an unprecedented successful year. All expectations for throughput have been exceeded,” said Port of Rotterdam Authority president Hans Smit.
According to Smits, vital progress has been made on Maasvlakte 2 development while the Betuwe rail freight route project has come back on line.
Reports have been highlighting hinterland links as the major hiccup to the success of European hub ports and analysts believe that projects like Betuwe are essential to freight efficiency and alleviating congestion.
Smits said that “enormous investments in the port (Rotterdam) have been guaranteed, with the Shell refinery, the Gate LNG terminal and the container terminals of Euromax and the Rotterdam World Gateway together already representing investment levels of some $3 billion.”