The first large-scale container operation in the Amsterdam Ceres terminal has gone smoothly. The container vessel, APL Ioliet, was in and out in two days.

On this special test trip the APL Ioliet unloaded 700 and took aboard 1,300 containers. The success increases Ceres’s chance of a follow-up contract which could cover over five percent of all containers to be transhipped in Amsterdam this year.

APL Ioliet is owned by APL shipping and sails for the South China Express, a consortium of five container shippers. The consortium is a major competitor of the Grande Alliance joint venture in which NYK, the Japanese owner of Ceres, participates. Both the Amsterdam Port Authority and Ceres have been working to bring the consortium to Amsterdam.

The Dutch Competition Authority (NMA) reported that it is examining the privatisation of the Rotterdam Port Authority; this is being done at the request of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. The relationship between the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam may be reviewed, according to a spokesperson.

The NMA denied that it has started investigating illegal agreements between the Rotterdam Port Authority and some other shipping companies. According to the Dutch media it made the agreements to thwart the Amsterdam Ceres terminal.