With more than 80 terminals handling every type of cargo, which provide work for more than 4,000 people, the Port also embodies expertise and experience of infinite variety - while investment during the next decade of more than £1 billion will provide the Port with facilities of exceptional quality.

This investment is earmarked for Thames-side facilities, with £800 million alone coming from terminal operators, backed by the continuing priority of upgrading the Port's road and rail infrastructure.

For its customers, the Port of London offers savings in two vital areas: time, through its proximity to the rich markets and industrial centres of South East England - as well as easy access to the rest of the country via the UK motorway and rail networks and cost, by virtue of shorter and quicker journey times to UK and European destinations.

To this scenario can be added the many added-value services, such as storage, packing and other cargo handling processes, all available on site, before direct distribution to customers.

The last year especially has seen two important enhancements. In November 2001 Tilbury Container Services completed the improvements to its terminal, in the shape of a 300 metres extension to its riverside quay which now allows the working of two large deep-sea container vessels at the same time - bringing its throughput capacity up to a half a million TEU annually.

The Fortress Distribution Park, also part of the Port of Tilbury, was commissioned in September, providing 55 acres for warehousing, cargo processing and distribution operations.

The Port of London generates a turnover of huge proportions - £2.7 billion annually - and its focus is on maximising the use of facilities so that importers can benefit from the wide range of services connected with cargo handling within the Port.

In recognition of this - and especially of unitised cargo - plans are already finalised and awaiting approval by statutory bodies for a new tri-modal logistics centre at the former oil refinery site at Shell Haven in Stanford-le-Hope.

The transformation of this brown-field site - now renamed "London Gateway" - will provide employment in container handling and a range of manufacturing processes.

In this expanding market, the new facility will complement the terminals at Tilbury, and at the same time will increase the impact and influence of the Port of London by attracting industrial activity, skills and services. Customers will therefore be increasingly attracted to move cargoes through the Port.

The UK Department of Trade and Industry has been quick to recognise this by according Regional Selected Assistance status to the riparian London Boroughs of Havering, and Barking & Dagenham, as well as to areas of Thurrock, thus allowing industry and commercial organisations in these areas to apply for special capital grants for enterprises that will generate jobs.

At the same time, the energies of the Port of London marketing team have been focussed on attracting seaborne trade to the Port, putting together joint-venture deals with foreign ports, whereby each partner markets the benefits of the other to potential customers or at trade events.

Another important aspect of these arrangements, is the sharing of experience through exchange of information and personnel.

The first agreement was made with the Port of Hamburg in 1998, since when a further two agreements have been signed with Algeciras Bay Port Authority and the Port Authority of Thailand.

But the search for potential customers also extends to the Port providing leads for the individual terminal operators as part of its vigorous programme of presentations in countries around the world.

In terms of its facilities, its experience, the breadth of its services - as well as its resource potential, the Port of London represents a fund of quality which earns it a pivotal position in Europe's trade network - a true gateway to the world, serving the many individual markets of the UK and Continent.

Unit loads are an important and steadily expanding trade through the Port of London and fall into two principal handling modes - unit loads discharged and loaded by container gantry cranes (lo-lo), and also unit loads transported by ro-ro vessels.

The Port of Tilbury is by far the major player in lo-lo traffic, boasting dedicated terminals to serve both the deep-sea and short-sea container trades. Completion of a second riverside berth at Tilbury Container Services (TCS) now provides TCS the scope to handle two deep-sea vessels simultaneously on the riverside.

At Tilbury, the Short-Sea Container Terminal with its modern facilities and strategic location, has become the centre of operations in South East England for two leading short-sea container operators, Geest North Sea Line and Seawheel. Between them, these two companies dominate the market for door-to-door movement of containers between the UK and Continental Europe.

The two major players in the handling of ro-ro traffic at the Port of London are Purfleet Thames Terminal and Thames Europort. At Purfleet, Cobelfret recently introduced a second daily service to Rotterdam, in addition to its established four sailings per day service to Zeebrugge.

Thames Europort has a schedule of five daily sailings to the Continent, with two each to Vlissingen and Zeebrugge, as well as one daily sailing to Dunkirk.

The other busy ro-ro facility is Ford Motor Company's Dagenham Jetty, which employs Cobelfret to operate three daily sailings from its Dagenham plant.

In addition to these major activities, the range of unitised cargoes through the Port of Tilbury includes the services of SCA Transforest at the Interforest Terminal to Scandinavia, and Transfennica to and from Finland and Estonia at the Finnish Terminal.

Grimaldi and Delmas Lines also have an important presence with the increasing throughput of unit loads, including project cargoes, handled by Tilbury's Conventional Department.

Steel and General Cargo

Steel coils, non-ferrous metals, steel reinforcement and general cargoes are all important commodities handled through the Port of London.

Steel coils are handled predominantly at two facilities - Welbeck Wharf and Tower Wharf, operated by Welbeck Steel Service Centre Limited and Seacon Terminals Limited, respectively. Welbeck Wharf handles imports of steel coils from the Dunkirk mill of its owners, Sollac, to feed the production lines at Ford, Toyota, Rover and Vauxhall as well as supplying white goods manufacturers. In addition to steel coils, Tower Wharf is equipped to handle non-ferrous metals and general cargo at its Northfleet facility.

Kierbeck Limited handles the majority of steel reinforcement imported through the Port at its Barking Creek facility, Kierbeck Wharf - a large part of which is destined to serve London's construction industry.

At the Port of Tilbury, both general cargo and steel products are handled by the Conventional Department.

Liquid Bulks

Liquid bulks imported through the Port of London range from crude oil and refined petroleum products to edible oils. The big names being BP at Coryton, Shell at Shell Haven, Vopak, Esso, ST Services, Calor Gas and Oikos, as well as Van den Bergh at Purfleet, Pura Foods at Brunswick Wharf, Poplar, and TDG UK Storage & Distribution's facility at Thunderer Jetty, Dagenham.

Between them the terminals offer substantial high quality specialist storage as well as value-added services such as drumming, repackaging and distribution.

Dry Bulks

The major volumes are in the form of sea-dredged aggregates from around the coasts of South East Britain, most of which is delivered to London construction sites. Important exceptions are Tate & Lyle Europe's Silvertown refinery which receives raw sugar for processing and distribution, and the West Thurrock Jetty which handles bulk powders for the Industrial Chemicals Group's Titan Works in Grays.

Nearby, the Thurrock Marine Terminal imports bulk product for Castle Cement while scrap metal is also a significant bulk at Hunt's Wharf, Pinns Wharf and European Metal Recycling's facilities at Canning Town, Erith and Tilbury. At the Port of Tilbury, the Tilbury Grain Terminal handles the imports of maize, wheat and soya, as well as the export of barley, wheat, peas, beans and rape seed. The terminal also serves the adjacent mills operated by Rank Hovis, Cargill plc, Allied Mills, ADM Milling and National Starch & Chemicals.

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