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After the end of the Suez Canal blockade, the Port of Hamburg is preparing as a precaution for an onslaught of seagoing vessels that have so far been stuck in traffic.

"We are preparing for a higher utilization of our facilities," said a spokesman for Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) on Tuesday of the German press agency.

For example, an additional area of ​​around 100,000 square meters will be activated for the storage of export containers.

As the largest container handling company, HHLA operates three of the four terminals in the port and handled 6.8 million standard containers (TEU) last year.

A total of 8.5 million TEU were handled.

Due to the day-long blockade of the Suez Canal by the 400-meter-long "Ever Given", according to the Egyptian Canal Authority, almost 370 ships have dammed up at both ends of the canal.

The first ships had already left the canal by Tuesday morning and dozens had crossed it, as announced by the shipping service provider Leth Agencies and the shipping and logistics company GAC.

There is particular pressure on the outer harbors

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It is still unclear which of the ships will go to Hamburg at all and when.

According to the Association of German Shipowners, the journey from the Suez Canal to the Hanseatic city usually takes ten days.

The HHLA spokesman said it was up to the shipowner which ship called at which port.

Hamburg is usually not the first port of call on the routes between Asia and Europe, but mostly Rotterdam.

"So there will initially be particular pressure on the outer harbors," said the spokesman.

It is possible that the shipowners then decided to call at German ports such as Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven and Hamburg first.

HHLA assumes that the tense situation with ship calls, which has been tense for months, will continue well into the summer.

The Suez Canal blockade is only part of the problem.

In addition, there would be disruptions due to the corona pandemic, Brexit, winter and spring storms or the labor dispute in the port of Rotterdam.

In 2019 the "Ever Given" collided with a ferry in the Port of Hamburg

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However, the HHLA spokesman was convinced: "We are set up technically and in terms of personnel so that we can reliably cope with the coming weeks." However, it is important that all participants in the logistics supply chain make their contribution and cooperate.

Incidentally, two years ago the container ship “Ever Given” went off course in the Port of Hamburg and crushed the 25-meter-long port ferry “Finkenwerder” at the Blankenese jetty.

People were not harmed back then.

Eurogate is ready to help with the clearance

According to the terminal operator Eurogate, the expected rush of container ships after the blockade in the Suez Canal has been resolved can only be resolved by redistributing it to different ports.

If all ships wanted to go to their original port of destination, "that won't work," said a spokesman in Bremen on Tuesday.

The decision as to where their ships should go lies with the shipping companies.

Like other terminal operators, Eurogate is ready to help with handling with its capacities.

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The shipping traffic in the German container ports in the coming days and weeks is difficult to forecast in this situation, said the spokesman.

First of all, the question arises in the Mediterranean.

The ports there are usually the first port of call in Europe for container ships from Asia.

Then it is about the distribution of the ships in Northern Europe.

In Germany, Eurogate operates three container terminals in Bremerhaven and one terminal each in Wilhelmshaven and Hamburg.