The Venice offshore-onshore terminal concept

The Venice Port Authority (VPA) is examining the issues related to the creation of an offshore island hub with container terminal, an oil terminal, and an onshore terminal at Porto Marghera (named Montesyndial) and the methods for transferring containers from one terminal to the other. RHDHV is supporting VPA as part of the above study with the specific task to define the equipment, handling systems and layouts for the two terminals: the offshore container terminal and Montesyndial. This article describes the challenges, methods and options that were considered in order to arrive at the layouts and equipment selection for the two terminals. It is demonstrated that for the offshore terminal it is possible to apply an fully automated operating concept, based on currently available equipment solutions, which can achieve a reasonable throughput capacity in a restricted available footprint. At the same time the proposed solution achieved a significant reduction in the cost per TEU of the project, including equipment Capital and Operational Expenditures.