Hunterston Port Ships Agency Services

Hunterston is a Scottish deep water terminal which focuses primarily on coal imports. The port has a pretty impressive ten per cent of this market and so it’s the largest in the UK by volume. The port continues to handle increasing amounts of coal, and the total coal tonnage handled has risen from 1.1m in 1996 to 4.9m in 2001.

This bulk terminal deep water port is one of the ports used by t ward shipping, who are pleased to offer their ranges of ship agency services to anyone wishing to use this important port. Hunterston has long been considered to be one of the most important ports in Scotland, if not Western Europe. It’s located on Scotland’s west coast and with a jetty head that extends into 26m of water; the outer berth is capable of discharging the largest cape size vessels.

The inner berth can accommodate vessels of up to 95,000 dwt, ready to be out loaded or transhipped to markets in the UK, Ireland and Europe. Hunterston is of course primarily known and used for shipping coal, and the coal discharging rates at the port are in fact the fastest in the whole of the UK, with up to 50,000 tonnes of coal SHINC.

There is a dedicated twin head automated rail loading station at Hunterston which offers its users environmentally friendly and cost effective transportation for their imported product. The site also has a lower rail vehicle loading area where haulage has easy access to the national motorway networked.

The History of Hunterston

The original Hunterston Ore Terminal was one of the finest deep water ore/coal terminals in the world when it was built in the 1970s. It was built between 1974 and 1979 to supply the then British Steel Corporation's Scottish works, and was important enough to have a direct rail link to the Ravenscraig Steelworks in Motherwell which was around 40 miles away.

Even though t ward shipping is based right over on the east coast of Scotland, we still look after a vessel based in Hunterston. We even have a dedicated agent who stays locally in a hotel when needed to make sure that we provide a complete 24 hour agency service.

For all of advice on ships agency, Hunterston or any other ports, give us a call and we’ll be delighted to discuss your needs.

T Ward Review of 2015

Well, we’ve come to the end of another year, and it’s time to look back over all we’ve achieved in 2015. We’re happy to report that things are looking good for t ward shipping; our forwarding work is certainly in demand as we’re up 25 per cent compared to 2014 and  an amazing 50 per cent compared to 2013!

We’ve certainly been busy, and had the pleasure of working with some interesting companies and organisations. In January we worked with Stretch Tent Scotland, assisting them with a shipment of specialist tents from Cape Town, and using our expertise to help them avoid large fees for importing. We’ve admired the products imported by Dumfries based firm Second Nature, who we helped to bring beautiful rugs from exotic countries like India and Morocco. They were very excited as they
watched their shipments sailing all the way across to Scotland.

We’ve worked with The Turing Trust a couple of times in 2015 and hope to continue working with them, as they are such a worthy cause. The charity, which supplies IT and other equipment to disadvantaged communities in countries like Ghana, has asked us to help them transport shipments of containers full of items donated by kind Scottish people, and we’ve been happy to get involved.

Other interesting charity projects we have worked with in 2015 include Edinburgh Direct Aid- a charity involved with sending supplies to Syrian refugees and the International Fire and Rescue Charity who supply equipment to Paraguay, Mexico and Bosnia (among many other places).

We were also pleased to work with award-winning chocolatiers The Chocolate Tree when they needed to import special confectionery making machinery from Italy.

So, t ward goes from strength to strength, helping businesses with their shipping needs, and while the business is expanding, we also have news of a more personal delivery;  the Hamilton family are due for a new arrival in mid-January with their second baby due on 13th.

Merry Christmas to all our customers, old and new, and we wish you a happy, healthy and successful
2016.