Balticon has officially opened an intermodal container terminal at the Port of Gdansk. The square will eventually fit over 10,000 teu, a railway siding will also be commissioned soon.

The Balticon inland intermodal terminal was officially opened on Thursday, May 18, although a large part of the storage yard has been available for some time. During the event, Tomasz Szmid, President of Balticon SA, Vice-President Michał Magdziarz and President of InvestGDA Alan Aleksandrowicz talked about the investment.

The terminal opened at 51 Ku Ujście Street, in the vicinity of the Baltic Hub sea terminal, the Balticon refrigerated depot and the National Road 89, will be used for transshipments in the road-rail and rail-road relationship, as well as for the storage of containers, their packing and unpacking. As part of the project, a yard for storing containers with specialized reloading equipment is already available, as well as a hall for modifying containers. However, this is only the first, although the largest part of the project.

– This yard, which is currently paved, will be able to store 7,700 teu. In the square that is being built on the border of this site, another 3,000 teu. As for the number of operations we plan to perform, it will be about 100,000 transshipments per year - says Tomasz Szmid, president of Balticon SA. – There are already six reloading machines in operation here. The total investment of the depot is PLN 27 million, the eligible costs are PLN 22 million, half of the eligible costs are co-financed by the European Union. The huge support from the EU allowed us to complete this investment many years faster than we would have done on our own – he explains.

The next stage, which will complete the terminal, will be the launch of a railway siding with a length of 380 meters.

– It should be ready in three months – announces President Szmid. – The next stage will be ready in the fourth quarter of this year - it is a special 3-hectare yard for handling full containers, customs services, reloading and forming containers. This is the next step, natural and complementary in existence to the intermodal terminal.

As Szmid admits, the terminal is a new challenge for the company, which until now dealt with the handling of empty containers. However, the company is developing systematically and is currently the leader in its industry in the region.

– We started the investment in 2008 with the development of DCT Gdańsk – now Baltic Hub – and the transfer of our client Maersk Line to Gdańsk. We launched a container depot of 2 hectares to handle empty containers. Currently, we have 16 hectares, which are 80% used under containers. We are currently the largest depot in the Baltic Sea region, we are now expanding our services to include full container service in the form of storage and formation of trains with containers. This is quite strongly related to Poland's opening up to foreign services. Trains from Ukraine arrive at the port of Gdańsk due to the blockade of the port in Odessa. We are preparing for the possibility of handling such cargo lines - explains Michał Magdziarz, COO Balticon SA.

As he adds, Balticon will be ready to handle the increased number of containers that are to come to Poland with the opening of new berths at the Baltic Hub in 2025.

– The depot is primarily used to handle Polish imports and exports. Producers and trading companies need space to handle goods imported and exported from Poland. This is our role, this is what the entire logistics and maritime industry is for and we are proud to be able to contribute to this - says Magdziarz.

During the ceremony, the president of Balticon, Tomasz Szmid, thanked Alan Aleksandrowicz from the Gdańsk Economic Development Agency InvestGDA for his help in the implementation of the project. Aleksandrowicz himself also did not hide his joy from the investment:

– This is of great importance for the port city of Gdańsk and increases the efficiency of the supply chain. We are sure that this investment and its further stages will have a positive impact on the development of the port, and the entire space will take on a new functional and economic meaning - he said.

The terminal is also part of the development of the TEN-T communication network.

During the official opening of the terminal, the invited representatives of the maritime industry and journalists could also admire up close the capabilities of the Kalmar reloading machines operating at the terminal. One of them also got the name "Mamut", chosen in a draw from among the guests' suggestions.