Rotterdam Port

Description of the Port
The port in brief
Rotterdam is Europe’s largest logistic and industrial hub. The port is the gateway to a European market of 450 million consumers. More than 500 scheduled services link Rotterdam with over 1000 ports worldwide. Throughput in 2005 amounted to 370 million tonnes.
The port of Rotterdam is situated directly on the North Sea. The very largest ocean-going vessels have unrestricted access around the clock, seven days a week. The port has a depth of 24 metres (75 feet) and Rotterdam has no locks. The many maritime service providers guarantee rapid turnaround times.
The port and industrial area stretches over a length of 40 kilometres and covers 10,000 hectares. Companies can find all imaginable facilities here for cargo handling, distribution and industry. A lot of auxiliary services are also on hand. Rotterdam is, for example, Europe’s cheapest bunker port. Due to the size of the operations, the port offers significant advantages of scale.
The European market is accessible from Rotterdam via five competing modalities: road, rail, inland shipping, coastal shipping and pipeline. Goods which arrive in Rotterdam in a morning can be in, for example, Germany, Belgium, France or Great Britain the same afternoon. One of the main advantages of Rotterdam is its location on the estuary of the rivers Rhine and Maas. As a result, efficient and economical transport by inland vessel is possible deep into the heart of Europe.
The port of Rotterdam is investing all the time to expand and improve its service. The most high-profile project is the pending construction of Maasvlakte 2, a new port and industrial zone in the North Sea, providing 1000 hectares of industrial sites with direct access to deep waters.