WINE GOES BY “GREEN” BARGE TO TESCO

Wine bound for Tesco supermarkets is flowing up the Manchester Ship Canal from the Port of Liverpool in a green waterborne initiative which is taking thousands of trucks off Britain’s congested roads and cutting CO2 emissions by 80%.

Peel Ports’ Liverpool – Manchester Shuttle operated by a tug pushing a barge capable of carrying up to 160 20ft containers, runs weekly from the international container terminal at Liverpool to the Irlam Container Terminal 40 miles up the River Mersey and Ship Canal.

The pioneering trans-shipment service sails up to three times a week from the mouth of the Mersey to the heart of the North West Region with a range of cargoes delivered by deep-sea shipping services at Liverpool’s Royal Seaforth Container Terminal.

On its return run, the Shuttle is expected to carry export cargo plus repatriated empty containers for transfer to deep-sea shipping services out of the Port of Liverpool.

Tesco are using the shuttle to move containers of new world wines normally transported from the Port of Liverpool by road to Salford based Kingsland Wines and Spirits for packing for distribution to supermarkets across the country.

Other businesses have merely discussed switching over to transporting their cargo by waterway one day but we’re actually doing it. This move may seem like taking a step back to the pre-car days of the late Victorian era - when a lot of cargo was still transported by canal – but is a step forward in helping to address today’s important environmental issues. Tescos are continually reviewing alternative green methods of transporting cargo and this is our first waterborne project within the UK. We are already looking at other areas where we can move freight on waterways.

The movement of containers by water from the Port of Liverpool into Greater Manchester and the North West, not only offers the shipper economies of scale, it provides the environment with valuable breathing space. Every container carried up the Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal takes a truck off the road, reduces the carbon footprint by 80% and dramatically reduces the damage caused to the road system.

The major road route between Liverpool and Manchester runs almost parallel with the River Mersey and Ship Canal, but the fully laden barge produces just 20% of the CO2 emissions generated by a fleet of fully loaded trucks carrying the same cargo. The River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal is a motorway with great potential.”

One corner of the processing site is only 50 yards from the Manchester Ship Canal, with the Irlam Container Terminal nearby.  Most of the liquid cargo, currently amounting to 1,500 teus (20ft containers) a year, is carried by Mediterranean Shipping Company on its weekly feeder service between Antwerp and Liverpool. Trans-shipping from the Royal Seaforth Container Terminal to the Irlam Container Terminal on the Ship Canal, ensures that the containers travelling thousands of miles across the globe, stay on water rather than road to complete their journey.

The Tesco wines from Australia, New Zealand, California, Chile and Argentina, had already secured substantial green miles when Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) transferred the containers from Felixstowe to Liverpool. The Peel Ports Shuttle achieves a further cut in road miles and establishes a near complete waterborne transport solution.

The environmental advantages are an added bonus in a logistics exercise which is a partnership between Peel Ports and Tesco.

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CEMEX aggregates moved on the River Severn

Water-borne freight services have resumed on the River Severn after a 10-year hiatus.

CBOA members Thompson River Transport have facilitated a cheaper and environmentally-friendlier means of transporting CEMEX aggregates by water rather than by road.

In March 2005 commercial use of the non-tidal River Severn resumed when transport of CEMEX’s quarried products on specialist (180-tonne) barges operated by Thompson River Transport began. This freight activity has resulted in the transport by water of 200,000 tonnes a year of sand and gravel.

The aggregate is extracted from a quarry near Ripple and transported by barge two miles north to CEMEX’s Ryall plant near Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, with four to seven loads per day being moved. At Ryall the aggregates are washed and separated into various grades and delivered by road to CEMEX concrete making plants.

Once property and legal matters have been resolved, it is expected that there will be a regular service whereby some 65,000 tonnes a year of newly-processed material will be loaded back onto the barges and transported down the River Severn and via the Gloucester - Sharpness Canal to CEMEX’s Ready Mixed Concrete plant two miles south of Gloucester. The concrete will then be used for locally based, construction projects within a 10-mile radius of CEMEX Ready mixed plant.

CEMEX chose modal shift from road onto water because it was a commercially sound and an environmentally-sustainable solution. The development of quarrying activity at Ripple would have had the adverse effect of increasing the number of lorries travelling on local country lanes. The solution was to maximize the nearby river as the principal mode of transport to Ryall. In the future there may be an opportunity to extend the river-transportation service upstream .

Environmental benefits
The new water-borne service has ensured that:

Investment
To facilitate the new river-borne freight service several million pounds have been invested in the infrastructure to ensure the sustainability of the service.
CEMEX applied for, and secured, a £1 million Freight Facilities Grant from the Department for Transport and used it to establish the handling equipment at its wharves at Ripple and Ryall.
CEMEX funded over £2 million alongside the Government’s grant and develop the infrastructure.
Thompson River Transport invested £300K in improving the two motor barges.

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The “Inland Navigator” demonstrates the River Trent's freight carrying potential

Robert Wynn and Sons have provided a timely reminder of the role the River Trent can play in reducing congestion on Nottinghamshire's roads.
Recently the “Inland Navigator" again demonstrated the freight carrying potential of the River Trent. The vessel carried a 135 tonne load from the former Power Station site at Staythorpe along the River Trent to the Port of Goole.

The 135 tonne transformer was loaded in to the “Inland Navigator”, a converted former tanker barge and then began her journey downstream through the central arch of Newark's historic Town Bridge, arriving at Goole where the load was transferred to a ship at this inland port. Traditionally similar loads would have been transported in excess of 100km along such regional roads as the A616, A614 and A1. This movement, however, involved only a 1 km road journey from a National Grid substation to the Trent-side loading facility.

Earlier the “Inland Navigator” carried two 280 tonne Quadrature Boosters on behalf of National Grid these were the largest single piece loads ever carried on the Trent upstream of Newark.

Tim West, Spokesperson for Robert Wynn & Sons commented,
"The movement of these transformers along the Trent had a beneficial impact on the region’s traffic levels.  Furthermore it demonstrated to politicians of all parties the freight carrying potential of our waterways, in particular the Trent. It is to be hoped that those elected locally will actively work towards increasing the tonnage carried on the river which is of course one of the UK’s longest commercial waterways."

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