Coal and ore are his business

Behind the barrier at the entrance portal of the highly automated Hansaport bulk terminal, a world of its own opens up. Like a small mountain range, huge coal and ore dumps extend over an open area of 350,000 square metres. 15 tracks for handling block trains and conveyor belts with a total length of around 10 kilometres wind their way across the site. 

From his office in the middle of Hansaport, Ben Thurnwald has the best view of the heart of the port terminal - the more than 1,000-metre-long quay edge with the four fully automated grab bridges. The mechanical engineer has been in charge of the state-of-the-art facility since 1 July 2016. "The four grab gantry cranes operate fully automatically without a driver," says Thurnwald. "That is unique in the world." 3-D scanners, with specially created software, ensure that the 12-tonne grab, on its ropes up to 30 metres long, lands automatically and with the right momentum in the right place on the ship's belly to pick up cargo. All the other main processes at HANSAPORT also run fully automatically. Manning the stockpiling equipment, the ship loader or the shunting robo-engine is only necessary in an emergency or for repair purposes.

Up to 110,00 tonnes of ore or 70,000 tonnes of coal can be shovelled out of the bulk carriers every day with the four bridges. "Ore has a heavier weight and better flow properties than coal, which is often more difficult to slide down," knows Thurnwald, who is now familiar with the special processes.

His company is majority-owned by Salzgitter AG; for HHLA it is a minority holding.  Hansaport handles 15 million tonnes a year over the quay edge, a good ten percent of the total throughput in the Port of Hamburg. This is ensured not only by the technology, but first and foremost by the 113 employees. "The pride in the company and the flexibility of the employees is extraordinary," reports Ben Thurnwald, who worked for almost 21 years at Lübecker Hafen-Gesellschaft, where he was most recently responsible for the technology division and acted as managing director for three subsidiaries.