by Manal Barakat, SeaNewsEditor
London Gateway, the UK's third-largest port, will become the country's largest after DP World's development plans are completed.
The Dubai-based company recently inaugurated a £350 million ($442 million) all-electric fourth berth as part of its six-berth expansion plan. It aims to position London Gateway as the UK’s largest container gateway within the next five years, surpassing Felixstowe Port.
In addition to this goal, London Gateway is set to become the primary port of call for vessels in the Gemini Cooperation’s network.
According to a customer advisory released on Monday, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, members of the Gemini Cooperation, have decided that their shared network vessels will call at London Gateway instead of Felixstowe starting in February 2025.
"During this optimisation process and our review of the Asia–Europe services, we have concluded that London Gateway is the most optimal port to serve our customers importing/exporting cargo to/from the UK," said Maersk.
The new alliance seeks to reduce network complexity with mostly single-operator loops and fewer port calls per service, which would eventually contribute to its 90% reliability goal.
Maersk added that the port change would affect Asia-Europe trade under the new cooperation, while the Middle East–Europe (London Gateway) and Trans-Atlantic (Southampton) Gemini services remain unchanged.
Situated on the River Thames, approximately 30 miles east of London, the new berth at London Gateway will operate alongside the London Gateway Logistics Park.
This park has a 9.25 million-square-foot warehousing capacity. The location further offers multimodal connectivity to domestic and international road and rail networks.
