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The facilities for handling and storing crude oil at the port of Rotterdam are being further expanded. Shell Europoort's jetty has been adapted to handle ships with an even deeper draft and Maatschap Europoort Terminal (MET) is now also expanding its tank capacity following the Maasvlakte Oil Terminal (MOT) project, where three new tanks went into use at the end of 2011.

Shell Europoort jetty

The deepened berth at Shell jetty 104 at Beneluxhaven was completed last week. The 'pocket' for the jetty (an area of 400 m x 80 m) was deepened by 2 metres to -23.65 m NAP. The bottom depth is now identical to that of the MOT jetties.

The navigation path to the jetty has been dredged by 0.5 metres to -22.15 m NAP. This means that Shell can accommodate the very largest oil tankers with a draft of 22 metres, allowing for more than 30,000 tonnes more crude oil per ship.

MET tanks

According to Rotterdam Port Authority, the extra MET tank capacity is not particularly related to an increase in supply, but gives the refineries greater flexibility, thus making them more competitive.

The expansion of the tank capacity at MET involves two 105,000-cubic metres (cbm) tanks. The first became operational at the end of 2012 and the second will follow in May. There is room on the site for one more tank, but no decision on this issue has been made. Capacity following the current expansion will be 1.6 million cbm in 21 tanks.

Around 16 million tonnes of crude oil a year arrive at MET. Almost all of this oil is the pumped to the Total refineries in Antwerp and Ruhr Oel in Gelsenkirchen, owned by BP and the Rosneft.

Supplies of crude

As the extraction of oil in the North Sea is declining, crude oil looks set to be brought in from other areas in the future. These different types of crude will then be blended to specifications at MET.

Over the past 10 years, supplies of crude oil have fluctuated between 92 and 102 million tonnes (98 million in 2012). During this period, the proportion of North Sea oil has fallen from over 40 million tonnes to less than 20 million tonnes.

Since 2003, most crude oil has originated from Russia. In 2012, ‘liquid bulk’, which includes crude oil, made up almost 50 percent of total throughput at the port of Rotterdam.