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ThyssenKrupp's New Eco-Friendly Push Boat Transports Ore and Coal from Rotteram to Duisburg

08/09/2013 - A modern line-haul push boat, part of a fleet operated by shipping company ThyssenKrupp Veerhaven B.V., a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe, went into service a few weeks ago.

The “Veerhaven IV”, also called “Neushoorn” (rhinoceros), went into service a few weeks ago. The modern line-haul push boat is part of the fleet operated by shipping company ThyssenKrupp Veerhaven B.V., a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe based in Brielle, Netherlands. Veerhaven has been transporting ore and coal from the port of Europoort in the Netherlands to the blast furnaces of ThyssenKrupp and HKM in Duisburg, Germany, since 1967. It runs a fleet comprising eleven push boats (8 company-owned, 3 leased), a harbor push boat, 115 company-owned and leased pushed barges, plus two inspection boats.
Green Award for the new boat
“Veerhaven IV — like our push boats Veerhaven X and XI before it — has received the Green Award certificate,” says Horst Steinhoff, managing director of ThyssenKrupp Veerhaven B.V. “Green Award certification from the Green Award Foundation is something we are particularly proud of and is held in high esteem by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment and the Port of Rotterdam. The boat has the advantage of low gas oil consumption and correspondingly low CO2 emissions. Our choice of a boat of this kind shows the importance Veerhaven attaches to making sustainable use of resources.” The entire Veerhaven fleet has significantly reduced its gas oil consumption in the past five years, cutting its CO2 emissions by around seven percent. In collaboration with Delft University of Technology, the company is currently looking into ways of optimizing the fleet even further in terms of energy efficiency, hydrodynamics and climate protection.
High-tech equipment
The push boat is 40 meters long, 15 meters wide and has a draft of 1.75 meters. It has three extremely robust 1,380 kilowatt engines to power the five-blade propellers, and is capable of pushing up to six fully laden 2,800 ton capacity barges up the Rhine to Duisburg in a train over 250 meters long. ‘Neushoorn’ is designed to run 24 hours a day, and alongside the state-of-the-art wheelhouse and control room it also has nine cabins, a gym, a changing room, a mess room and a galley for the normally seven-strong crew. The boat was built at the Kooiman shipyard in Zwijndrecht, Netherlands.