Newport Industries to establish £7m Port of Liverpool facility

Chemicals distributor Newport Industries has revealed plans to invest £7m in a new facility at the Port of Liverpool.

The firm hopes the bulk handling facility, to be established at Canada Branch Dock, will allow it to meet an increasing demand from its customer base in the North West.

By investing in a new purpose-built Merseyside hub with deep water access, Newport Industries intends to create an all-water ‘highway’ into one of the UK’s foremost manufacturing regions, potentially slashing costs and reducing its carbon footprint.

Newport Industries’ managing director, Raj Patel, said: “We are delighted to announce the development of Canada Dock, a state of the art facility which will combine our technical expertise of the products we supply, with a 24-hour supply chain for all our consumers in the North of England.

“The facility will have an initial capacity to supply over 500k tons by 2017, with an additional 300,000mts by 2020.”

Construction work on the bulk handling facility will be delivered across several phases, the first of which includes two silos and a pneumatic ship discharger, due for completion this autumn. A further four silos and a pallet warehouse will be created by 2018

Peel Ports’ group land and property director, Andrew Martin, commented: “We have a long-standing partnership with Newport Industries, which has seen the volume of bulk products it handles grow by more than 200% in just under five years.

“The new bulk handling facility at the Port of Liverpool will allow these volumes to grow further.”

He added: “The project emphasises both the strength of our regional logistics market and the opportunity that our £300m Liverpool2 development will offer to customers.”

Andrew further said that while half of the demand for cargo in the UK comes from the North, just 8% of the goods coming to the UK arrive via this route, creating congestion on the North’s roads and driving up carbon emissions and costs.

He continued: “Peel Ports’ network of terminals in the North West, including Liverpool2, opens up a viable and cost effective alternative which we are urging cargo owners and logistics operators such as Newport Industries to consider.”

Work on phase one of Newport Industries’ bulk handling facility will start in February.

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