Page 62: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 1999)

Europort Port of Rotterdam Europort '99 Set To Sail Europort '99 once again promises to attract a wide spectrum of marine equipment and service suppliers to exhibit their wares to thousands of potential ship-own-ing and operating buyers. In addition to the exhibition, which has become a staple in the industry's voracious trade show diet, this year's exhibition is complimented by a particularly strong conference component, featur-ing prominent industry speakers from all facets of the maritime world, along with presentations by leading brokers and key industrial players regarding the current market prospectus. This year's Europort Conference focuses on ways in which the European market will advance. Held at Amsterdam RAI from November 16-20, the exhibition is slated as the platform for the inter-national maritime industry to present itself to a world-wide trade public. More than 1,100 maritime display stands from the Netherlands and around the world are expected to attend. The exhibition will also house national pavilions from Austria, China, Denmark, Italy, U.K and the U.S. On display will be thousands of marine products representing all aspects of the Interna-tional Maritime Industries such as ship design, building operation, maintenance and repair; dredgers and dredg-ing equipment; and ports, harbors and locks. Panel speeches, which commence on Tuesday, November 16, feature industry leaders such as Willem de Jong, managing director, marine division Lloyd's Register; Jeremy Langdon, managing director, Hanno Shipping; and Andrew A. Wright, senior engineering specialist, American Bureau of Shipping. Topics of dis-cussion will focus on today's main issues, specifically What should European shipbuilding fairly expect form the politicians?, The Norwegian maritime cluster ? a continually evolving form, and The future for diesel engine building in Europe. If you are interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Europort '99 please contact Cathy Hodge at +44 (0) 20 7453 5414; or fax +44 (0) 20 7631 3214. Those wish-ing to attend the conference should direct enquiries to Jennifer Mountford at +44 (0) 20 7453 5492. STN Atlas To Exhibit Hamburg-based STN Atlas Marine Electronics at Europort 99 will fea-ture a comprehensive range of automation, communication, naviga-tion, propulsion and hydrographic survey systems. Among the wares displayed will be a new series of high-resolution radars featuring advanced clutter suppression and innovative docking maneuver facili-ties, the Atlas 1000 series. Additional key exhibits include a state-of-the-art integrated bridge control assembly implementing the NACOS navigation command sys-tem, which is type-approved for automated navigation and track-keeping ? in addition to a DNV Watch-1 notation. Featured commu-nications on display will be the latest Debeg range of GMDSS units while propulsion exhibits will include Dol-phin, and advanced podded system developed in conjunction with Netherlands-based LIPS BV and LDW of Bremen. Circle 64 on Reader Service Card GL To Display At Europort Germanischer Lloyd (GL) will be highlighting its extended services for VAF Introduces Premier Viscosity Sensor VAF Instruments has introduced ViscoSense, a new sensor used for viscosity measurement of fuel oil for a ship engines or oil fired land based power plants. The sensor presents a technolo-gy, which until now, had reportedly never been used in this market. Proven tests have shown that ViscoSense's measur-ing principle, which is based on rotational vibra-tion technique, ensures accurate and trouble-free measurements. The com-pact, maintenance-free sensor is easy to install in existing systems and requires no spare parts. Circle 66 on Reader Service Card shipowners and operators at the upcoming Europort '99. Offering new IT tools for shipowners, which support the design process and ship operation, shipowners and operators can reap favorable benefits from the GL service package for the topics ISM/ISO. Besides safety, ISM certi-fication with GL aids in achieving improved procedures and cost-reduc-tion. Another member of this soft-ware family has been released - the Poseidon New Design. Available soon, this dimensioning and testing program was developed by designers for designers and includes a user-friendly interface. Circle 46 on Reader Service Card Pattje Shipyards Constructs Variety Of Vessels With more than 200 years of ship-building experience, Pattje Shipyards of Waterhuizen has built an array of vessels, such as gas tankers, suppli-ers and multi-purpose container ves-sels. A member of the Bodewes Vol-harding Group, which consists of Shipyard Bodewes Volharding at Foxhol, Pattje Assemblage yard at the seaport Eemshaven and the Noord Nederlandse Staalbouw at Groningen, Pattje holds a prime spot in the world of international ship-building. Circle 67 on Reader Service Card 58 News notes from the world's busiest port ECT Deal Approved The Rotterdam City Council has approved the buying of 35 percent of the shares of ECT by Rot-terdam Municipal Port Management as a member of a consortium in which Hutchison (35 percent), ABN AMRO Bank (14 percent), ING Bank (14 percent) also will participate. The banks rank one and two in the Netherlands and their substantial involvement is considered as an expression of faith in the consortium and ECT. Two percent of the shares are reserved for employee benefit RMPM Prepares For Y2K Glitches The Rotterdam Municipal Port Management sent out Y2K-preparedness questionnaires to more than 1,300 vessels, and was positively surprised with the responses that it generated. RMPM expects 150 sea going vessels to be in the port area during the crit-ical period between 10 a.m on December 31 and 2 p.m. on January 1. Concerning the millennium bug Pieter Struijs, executive director Shipping of the RMPM, divides the problem in four different items. 'The critical systems - for example the Ves-sel Traffic Management System - the nautical ser-vices and the crisis organization at the port are mil-lennium-ready.' The fourth item concerns the admittance policy. Only millennium-ready ships are welcome in Rotterdam. By answering the ques-tionnaire which was distributed at the beginning of the summer, the shipowner declares that he will respect the millennium code of good practice and states that their ships are millennium ready. New Inland Terminal Is Operational On October 11 another new inland barge terminal came into operation in the township of Gorinchem, just 40 km from the eastern port area of Rotterdam. The Merwede Terminal Gorinchem is operated by the Kool Road Haulage Company. Kool expects to handle some 10-15,000 teu's per year. A large cus-tomer is Nestle, with one of its factories adjacent to the terminal. About 10 years ago inland container shipping started an impressive advance. Nowadays some 1.5 million teu's are transported from and to Rotterdam by barge. Besides ever growing num-bers a second trend is the diminishing distance between the satellite terminals and the marine ter-minals in Rotterdam. New Services To Spain, Norway & Sweden On September 20 Cantabrian Line, a joint ven-ture of the Rotterdam agency Voigt & Co and the Spanish company Perez Y Cia, started a new week-ly container service with Santander. Capacity is 172 teu. Santander especially serves the region Castilla-Leon and Madrid. In September Euro Con-tainer Line, a joint venture of Eimskip from Iceland and Wilson Eurocarriers from Sweden, started a new weekly container service between Rotterdam and four ports on the west coast of Norway. Start-ing October 1, Unifeeder raises the frequency of its Rotterdam-Goteborg (Sweden) service from two to three times a week. The three vessels of the service have a capacity between 375 and 500 teu. Maritime Reporter/Engineering News