Jan 10

Prat Pier (Hutchison Ports BEST) and Madrid-Abroñigal lead intermodal rail traffic in Spain

The Annual Report of the Railway Sector prepared by the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC), which has been echoing the Puerto Diario in recent days, analyzes for the first time the evolution of intermodal terminals of merchandise in Spain, its traffic volume and the market share of the business groups with the greatest presence in this logistics field.

Specifically, as the report reflects, in 2018 the intermodal terminal with the highest activity in Spain was the Prat Pier (with more than 100,000 UTIs managed), located in the Port of Barcelona and operated by the Hutchison logistics group, followed by Madrid-Abroñigal (91,800 UTIs), managed by a joint venture led by Renfe Merchandise. In third place were the intermodal terminal of the Port of Bilbao and Maritime Terminal of Zaragoza, in both cases according to the report data with a volume greater than 80,000 containers.

According to the report, intermodal activity in Spain is carried out in 40 active terminals or which will have activity in a short period of time, of which 31 are inland and 9 port. In 2018, the activity was clearly concentrated around the ports of Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao and in logistics areas of Madrid and Zaragoza.

In the course of the year analyzed, intermodal rail terminals managed a total of almost 1.13 million containers in Spain, of which, according to the report, 0.39 million had as origin or destination port terminals, which corresponds to 35%, while 0.74 million were managed between fully inland terminals.

Adif

If the ownership of the terminals is adhered to, Adif remained the main owner of intermodal terminals in Spain with a total of 24, all of them inland.

However, at the end of the aforementioned report corresponding to 2018, Adif directly managed only 8 terminals, with a total activity in the environment of 120,000 UTIs.

The other 16 terminals of its property are operated at risk and venture by third parties, with a total activity of almost 400,000 UTIs.

The terminals owned by other entities, such as port authorities, local corporations or business entities, amounted to a total of 16, seven of which are inland, with an activity of 220,000 UTIs, and 9 are port terminals with a traffic in 2018 of 390,000.

Ranking

The five most relevant intermodal port terminals by volume of traffic in this order in 2018 were Muelle Prat (Barcelona), Bilbao, Muelle Sur (Barcelona), Muelle Príncipe Felipe (Valencia) and Muelle Levante (Valencia).

As for inland intermodal terminals, the first five in this order according to the volume of traffic were Madrid-Abroñigal, tmZ, Puerto Seco Coslada, Barcelona Morrot and Constantí.

Regarding the weight of the different operators of the terminals, in its report the CNMC observes “a certain tendency towards the vertical integration of the terminals with shipping companies or the concentration in large logistics groups”.

In 2018, these large groups accounted for more than 70% of the total UTIs handled in the Spanish market, leading Cosco traffic, with 18% of the total market and more than 200,000 UTIs, and Hutchison with more than 14% and higher traffic to 150,000 UTIs.

The other groups by importance were APM, slightly below 150,000 UTIs; Adif, with a traffic of just over 120,000 UTIs; Renfe Merchandise, above 100,000 UTIs; and, finally, located in the surroundings of 50,000 / 60,000 UTIs, Grupo Suardíaz, Grupo Alonso and Deutsche Bahn.

HUTCHISON PORTS COMMITS TO SETTING SCIENCE-BASED TARGETS TO REACH NET-ZERO BY 2050

Hutchison Ports is officially committed to setting both near-term and net-zero targets in line with the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) net-zero standard. We aim to set ambitious emissions reduction targets in line with the latest climate science according to SBTi and reach net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050.

Recognising the risks and opportunities associated with climate change, Hutchison Ports is committed to developing a decarbonisation strategy across the Group. A net-zero strategic roadmap has been developed which takes into account the past emissions pattern, future plan on electrification of fleet, adoption of renewable energy and alternative fuel.

Through this commitment, Hutchison Ports also becomes part of the Business Ambition for 1.5°C and Race to Zero campaigns.

Click here to know more about SBTi.