THE PORT OF HUELVA presents the services of the South Quay as a cold logistics hub to boost fruit and vegetable exports

The president of the Port of Huelva has assured that the Port ‘attends Fruit Attraction once again this year, to show exporters and importers of fruit and vegetable products, as well as shipping companies, freight forwarders and logistics and transport companies, all the projects and infrastructures that have been set up in the South Quay, such as our intermodal platform, where shipping companies operate with regular lines to the north of Europe, Morocco and the Canary Islands, with the aim of increasing fruit and vegetable traffic from the Port of Huelva and continuing to promote intermodality as a safe and sustainable means of transport’. 

Annual volume of more than 172,000 tonnes of fruit, vegetables

In this context, Alberto Santana recalled that the Port of Huelva moves an annual volume of more than 172,000 tonnes of fruit, vegetables and pulses, a type of merchandise which is in continuous growth, due to the weight that agricultural activity occupies in the economy of the province. Cold logistics is a priority for the port of Huelva in its bid to boost agri-food exports at the Muelle Sur.  In this area, the sustainable Cold Logistics Hub, promoted by the company Frigoríficos Portuarios del Sur, stands out.

It is intended for temperature-controlled goods, both frozen and refrigerated, and constitutes one of the most important port refrigeration facilities in Europe for the storage and maritime-terrestrial transit of goods at controlled temperatures, serving all sectors and markets, especially with Africa and Northern Europe. This large facility will be powered by fully sustainable energy based on circular economy. The origin of this energy comes from the enormous amount of cold that is released from the regasification process of liquefied natural gas, which the Port of Huelva and Enagás will conduct to this innovative facility.

The South Quay has a berthing line of 1,275. As a cold logistics hub, it offers a 58,000 square metre container terminal managed by the company Yilport Huelva, with 240 reefer outlets for refrigerated goods. In this intermodal platform, which combines different modes of transport, there is a 55,000 square metre ro-ro area, equipped with 16 electrical outlets for trucks in a multi-purpose area. The container yard is being expanded to 250,000 square metres.

As for maritime connectivity of the Port of Huelva, in full growth, it offers different regular container lines to Northern Europe (United Kingdom, Holland and Germany) and the Canary Islands, a destination to which three weekly connections are added by ro-pax vessels (www.Ruta1400.es).

In addition, the Port of Huelva has a new direct weekly connection with Morocco. This is a regular container line of the shipping company Maghreb Container International SL (MCI), which operates the Mediterranean-Huelva-Casablanca-Mediterranean route, as the line makes previous calls at the ports of Barcelona, Castellón and Alicante until it arrives at the port of Huelva.

This Huelva-Casablanca service is carried out with the 700 TEU vessel Greta, which transports dry and refrigerated containerised cargo.  This line connects with the Canary Islands from the Port of Huelva. In this way, it links the Spanish Mediterranean (Barcelona, Castellón and Alicante) with the Canary Islands from Huelva, as goods from the Levante can be transferred on Fridays to the vessel Christina, which calls at the Canary Islands on Sundays.

These maritime services are complemented and synchronised with the multimodal rail services of the Port of Huelva, with direct weekly connections with the Majarabique rail terminal (Seville) and with Abroñigal (Madrid), in full growth and with immediate developments in the form of Railway Freeways, dedicated to the transport of semi-trailers.

As for the new projects being developed at the South Quay, the works for a new double roro ramp are nearing completion. This infrastructure will be added to the existing one and will allow four ferry vessels to operate at the same time, generating new growth prospects for the Port of Huelva. The Port of Huelva is present at the 4B01 Fruit Attraction stand in an exhibition space of Puertos del Estado. This exhibition, organised by IFEMA MADRID and FEPEX, is being held this year under the slogan ‘Discover the essence of the sector’. https://www.puertohuelva.com