An answer for Venice?
The new terminal design may help delay the already very visible problems of Venice
Caught between being part of a difficult economy which needs deep water terminals to keep afloat, and a famously fragile city which is itself in danger of floating, the Port of Venice may have found a solution.
Under an offshore design by Halcrow, a platform will be positioned eight nautical miles – about 14 kilometres – from the mainland and where the sea bed has a natural depth of 20 metres.
An outer breakwater will both protect the terminal in all weather and have the task of acting a “refuge berth” for ships waiting to enter the port when the MOSE barriers (Venices’ anti-flood system) are closed.
The link between the terminal and the new 90 hectare container terminal in Porto Marghera will be by barge, operating on a continuous cycle. Thanks to an automated system, the time needed to transfer goods between ships and barges has been estimated at around two minutes per container.
The scheme also provides for logistic areas where containers can be processed. It will also mean better links by rail and road to the main local routes, as well as to and from markets in central and Eastern Europe. The capacity will be between 1.5m and 3m teu, handling ships of between 6,000 and 14,000 teu.
The new port area will also be equipped with facilities to manage oil ships as well as expansion into other categories of goods, such as solid bulk cargo coming in on capesize vessels.
The oil terminal site is designed to manage a maximum capacity of 7m tonnes of crude and dock ships of over 150,000 tonnes, unloading directly into an underwater pipeline linked to refineries in Porto Marghera and Mantua.
On top of this, support services including such things as a desalinisation plant, emergency heliport, medical centre, buildings for staff, canteens, accommodation and offices will have to be built, all of which will be supplied with electricity derived from renewable sources.
It doesn’t come cheap: the investment required to create the infrastructures for the new platform is estimated to be around €1.3bn ($1.8bn).