Deutsche Bahn to invest in expansion of Duisburg Coal Island

Coal Island in the Port of Duisburg, which is an ideal strategic location for the transhipment of imported bulk materials, currently has an annual capacity of 2.5 mt.

This is scheduled to be expanded to 4.5 mt by the end of 2014.

Until then, the capacity available for the import of goods by barge from the Port of Rotterdam, for the transhipment and storage of coal on the site, which covers an area of 198,000 square meters, and for supplying the coal-fired power plants in North Rhine-Westphalia is to be almost doubled.

“With this investment, in view of the increase in demand for imported coal, DB Schenker Rail Deutschland AG and its wholly-owned subsidiary RBH Logistics GmbH are making a major contribution in the Port of Duisburg to providing power plants with a long-term stable supply,” says Dr. Karl-Friedrich Rausch, Member of the Management Board DB Mobility Logistics AG responsible for Transportation and Logistics.

With the end of German hard coal already in sight, the demand for imported coal is expected to increase annually by around 11 mt until 2018.

RBH Logistics GmbH is the largest tenant on Coal Island, where it operates a high-capacity transhipment terminal. All the technical facilities on Coal Island are linked together in such a way that any combination of loading and unloading, storage and mixing coal to meet the customers’ requirements is possible.

High-quality blends can be produced in the company’s own stacker reclaimer facility in particular.