Musician-turned-port director Oversees Breakbulk Development
By Simon West
It is fitting that Breakbulk Europe, the world’s largest project cargo conference, is this year taking place in Rotterdam, home to Europe’s busiest deep-water port. Boasting specialized terminals for every kind of cargo, Port of Rotterdam is also billed as the region’s most versatile breakbulk hub.
Danny Levenswaard, director breakbulk at Rotterdam, said the port’s capacity to handle the most demanding heavy-lift moves was on show last year after it successfully transported an entire bio-oil pyrolysis plant from the Netherlands to Sweden.
Some 35 oversized modules measuring 20 meters long, 7 meters tall and 5 meters wide were collected in a single load and shipped for client M-Star Projects, who insisted the cargo was transported sustainably via inland shipping rather than overland.
“It was a really nice project that showed the capability of the forwarder, but also of the production people here in the Netherlands,” Levenswaard said. “It showed the capabilities of the port companies, the terminal that handled this whole operation and the shipping companies who were able to ship the whole thing to Sweden.”
Levenswaard joined the Port of Rotterdam in 1992 following a successful 12-year stint as a professional saxophonist. After several roles in human resources, the one-time muso switched to the port’s commercial department, first as business development manager, then senior business manager for bulk and shipping.
He has been director for the port’s breakbulk department since early 2016, overseeing the commercial development of project cargo, heavy-lift, forest products, cars, steel and non-ferrous metals, agro-food and warehousing.
Sustainability Matters
Levenswaard also sits on the Breakbulk Europe Advisory Board, a group of industry professionals brought together to help shape the program for this year’s conference, taking place on May 17-19. Amid these unsettled times, the Board’s 11 members have the exacting task of pinpointing and exploring the issues that matter most to the industry.
“If you look at the world today there are a lot of issues. I think sustainability across the supply chain is a big one. Companies are forced to produce and to work in a more clean and green manner,” the executive said.
A specific challenge for heavy-lift, meanwhile, is the ever-increasing size of cargo. The offshore wind energy industry in particular is being driven by constant technical innovation, with components such as monopiles and turbines getting bigger and more powerful every year.
“For onshore wind they were big already, but for offshore wind they are even bigger,” Levenswaard said. “This puts a challenge on ports in terms of port infrastructure, but also in the design of vessels.”
These issues and more will be explored in a series of panel sessions at Breakbulk Europe. Levenswaard, who attended his first Breakbulk event six years ago, said the conference is a surefire way of keeping pace with the market.
“One of the main tasks of the commercial department is to attract cargo to the port and to generate as much commercial activity in the port as possible. You do that by meeting people within the industry and trying to find out where you can be of service to each other.”
Colombia-based Simon West is senior reporter for Breakbulk.
Image credit: Eric Bakker
