Following his success as Regional Director for the Middle East and Africa, in which he won Trelleborg the largest ever contract for fender systems, Paul has moved over to take on the president’s role in the U.S. to establish the company’s new manufacturing and business development facility in Berryville, Virginia.

All employees from Trelleborg’s previous site in Clear Brook, Virginia, have now made the move to operate from Berryville and Paul Welling, previously regional director for the Middle East and Africa has moved over to take on the regional president’s role in the U.S.

Richard Hepworth, President of Trelleborg Marine Systems, says: “Paul has a great deal of experience in project management and business development, as well as extensive knowledge and understanding of the foam and rubber fender markets. Given Paul’s success in his previous roles, we look forward to him steering our activities in the U.S.”

Paul, who has worked for Trelleborg’s marine operation for nearly 10 years, will head up the company’s new facility in Berryville. He will drive manufacturing excellence initiatives at the site, ensuring the sustainable and efficient manufacture of the innovative solutions that Trelleborg specializes in. Paul will take over the day-to-day management of the site: overseeing safety and production, whilst ensuring the U.S. operation is well positioned to meet ever-growing customer demand. Also taking responsibility for business development in the region, Paul will work closely with customers on individual projects to deliver the customized solutions that Trelleborg are known for.

Paul says: “I’m looking forward to taking on this new challenge within the business and getting to know the people at Trelleborg in a different region. Business in the States is done very differently to the Middle East and I’m looking forward to getting to know our customers in the region and working with them to develop solutions that best fit their project requirements.”

The enterprise no longer sees itself in a position to bear the additional costs caused by the lengthy waiting times in the Port of Rotterdam entirely on its own.

“Since January the barges of the Contargo fleet have had to wait increasingly long times for the loading and unloading process”, says Cok Vinke, Co-Managing Director of Contargo Waterway Logistics.
“Throughput times of 50 hours, with peaks of up to 90 hours, are no longer unusual.”

As a result, processing is taking more than one-third longer on average than normal. Due to the bottlenecks, many export containers cannot be unloaded at the prearranged terminal. Contargo tries to adhere to its schedules by chartering additional tonnage.

“Regrettably, all our discussion with the various bodies concerned in the Port of Rotterdam have not led to any improvement and as it looks at present, the situation cannot be expected to improve in the foreseeable future”, Cok Vinke says. “We can no longer bear the entire additional costs, so we are forced to pass on part of them to our customers.”

Contargo will levy the Congestion Surcharge from 15 April 2015, for barge departures scheduled on that day. The surcharge will apply for all consignments, irrespective of the starting point.

If the processing situation deteriorates further, the company reserves the right to recalculate the congestion surcharge and adapt it accordingly. The surcharge will stay in place until processing times in the Port of Rotterdam become considerably shorter.

“In the Port of Antwerp, a situation is developing which is similar to the one in Rotterdam”, Cok Vinke says. “We are also keeping a close watch on the throughput times of our barges there and we wish to state that if the situation there should become worse, we shall have to introduce a congestion surcharge for that seaport, too.”

As of today, the port has taken possession of 95 additional chassis, with 15 of those assets having already been added to the HRCP II pool. As unbundling grounding and final inspections occur throughout the week, the number of chassis assets entering the pool will continue to rise. Our effort is to have 400 chassis added to HRCP II before the end of April.

The port broke ground today at Virginia International Gateway (VIG) on the new rail cargo yard. When completed in June, this initiative will effectively separate containers conveyed by rail and truck. Not only will this project create additional capacity in the VIG container pad, by removing rail containers, it will contribute to an improved dwell-time for all rail traffic.

Finally, the cross-harbor transfer of three rubber-tired gantry (RTG) cranes from Norfolk International Terminals (NIT) to Portsmouth Marine Terminal (PMT) is complete. All three RTGs are ready for service at PMT.