HGK Shipping, Europe’s largest inland waterway shipping company, and the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Europe’s largest seaport, signed a long-term cooperation agreement to promote sustainable concepts for inland waterway services leading to and from seaports.
The primary focus of the document is on the energy revolution and logistics for hydrogen, reducing CO2 emissions by using innovative drive concepts and digitalization, and enhancing transparency along supply chains. These topics are crucially important to ensure reliable and sustainable supplies for industry, and the agreement ensures that stable supply chains will continue between Germany and the Netherlands, and within Europe.
As part of the cooperation arrangement, the partners will establish a reliable supply chain for hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives, as well as alternative renewable fuels to promote the energy revolution. They will also analyze how the need for services to transport, store, and transship alternative energy sources will develop, with the goal of making the inland waterway fleet more ecologically friendly and drawing up implementation concepts for renewable engine fuels.
The partners will enhance transparency along supply chains to organize procedures more efficiently, flexibly, and sustainably. They will involve other stakeholders and exchange information about the quantities and types of goods that are transported and transhipped through cooperation on digital platform initiatives, which support communications and the exchange of information for all the partners involved in the supply chain and work to achieve standardization further inland.
Matthijs van Doorn, Vice-President Commercial at Port of Rotterdam Authority, said, “We are very pleased with the enhanced cooperation with HGK Shipping. Cross-border initiatives with strong and ambitious partners in the areas of energy transition and digitalization are of paramount importance to reach our goal of becoming a CO2 neutral port by 2050. Inland shipping plays a crucial role in supplying hydrogen to the European market and at the same time, this sector has the best credentials to do so in a sustainable and efficient way by sailing on alternative fuels and using innovative techniques.”
Steffen Bauer, the CEO of HGK Shipping, said, “The port of Rotterdam is assuming a key role in supplying European industries and the energy sector as the hydrogen economy is launched. By working together, we can develop the future flows of supplies for the energy sector, but also for our parent company, the City of Cologne Public Utilities Group, and therefore enable reliable and dependable access to renewable energy sources.”
The agreement between HGK Shipping and the Port of Rotterdam Authority is significant as it ensures reliable and sustainable supplies for industries, promotes the energy revolution, and reduces CO2 emissions by using innovative drive concepts and digitalization. The cooperation will also enable the establishment of a reliable supply chain for hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives, as well as alternative renewable fuels, making inland waterway fleets more ecologically friendly, and enhance transparency along supply chains, which will ensure efficient, flexible, and sustainable procedures.
