FACE TO FACE
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JOE O’NEILL CEO, BELFAST HARBOUR
A lot has happened since Joe O’Neill succeeded Roy Adair as Chief Executive Officer at Belfast Harbour in the Spring of 2018 – and a lot more is about to unfold, as we have been finding out in an exclusive ‘face to face’ interview. Joe O’Neill’s journey to the top at Belfast Harbour began more than two decades ago, having served in various roles, including Business Development and more recently Commercial Director, and today, with an expanding management team of highly experienced personnel supporting him, the port has an ambitious vision of where it wants to be in 2035. The history of Belfast Harbour, of course, goes back over 400 years to 1613 when King James 1st granted a Royal Charter Incorporating Belfast to establish a port. Since then it has grown and been transformed from a muddy estuary to a modern, deep water port – and that transformation is continuing at a pace. In September past Belfast Harbour unveiled its strategic plans for the next four years – A Port for Everyone - with an outlook, a vision, through to 2035. “We want to be the best regional port in the world to help our importers and exporters in the global marketplace, so we need to grow as a port by investing to meet those needs.” says Joe. He adds: “We are aspiring to be a Green port one in which our operations and developments will be undertaken in the most sustainable manner possible to positively impact on our environment. In addition, we want to be a Smart port, one that is innovative, using the latest available digital technology, and a port that is connected to the community, the city, the wider region and the rest of the world. “As a Port for Everyone, we also want to open it up so that people will want to live here, will want to visit for leisure and tourism purposes, will want to study here and will to want to invest here, always keeping in mind that our first priority is to serve the needs of our core customer base.”
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How is that going to unfold? Over the next four years, we will be investing almost £260m. About £100m of that will go into core port investments, with the balance utilised in road infrastructure, connectivity and some other estate developments; all of that will be self-financed, but a number of the bigger projects from 2023 to 2035 that are currently in the planning stages may require some wider investment. To best serve the needs of our port users in what is a rapidly changing trading environment we are, for example, investing £40m to upgrade our VT3 container terminal and introduce new, state-of-the-art automated and larger cranes, as part of our aim to be a ‘Smart’ port. The first of the new cranes, which will be more efficient and much safer, have already arrived.
With Stena Line introducing two new larger ferries on the Belfast-Liverpool route, we have also invested in upgrading the berthing infrastructure at the ferry terminal and introduced a new double deck linkspan, making the loading and unloading of traffic much faster, as well as investing in new feeds storage and a new quay to cater for the increasing number of cruise ships coming into the port. Investment, too, is being made in digital technology to improve cargo and shipping communications and in an additional pilot boat, which will ensure our users have the best available maritime facilities at their disposal. With consumer behaviour changing, we will also have to adapt to developing market trends. For example, the world is moving towards a zerocarbon economy, and being the largest port in Northern Ireland for handling fuel products such
