War and Covid-19 directly impact operations at Maja Stuwadoors

The main port served by Maja Stuwadoors

B.V. is Amsterdam. In 2022, Maja rented only one floating crane on a fixed base to a colleague stevedore in Rotterdam.

In 2022, the company handled 360,000 metric tonnes of agribulk and 3.25mt (million tonnes) of minerals. This represents a decrease compared with 2021. There are two main reasons for this fall — the war in Ukraine adversely affected the throughput of agribulk, and problems related to the Covid-19 pandemic and resultant economic issues — especially the soaring energy prices — were behind the drop in minerals.

The main volumes handled by Maja are scrap and fertilizer; the company is not a major player in the coal market. There was a sharp increase in coal coming to Amsterdam, due to reducing gas supply from Russia. Maja’s colleague stevedores in Amsterdam are much better equipped to handle this volume, so this massive flow was handled by them. Maja offered some assistance with its floating cranes. It is to be expected that this flow will decrease significant in the future when things start to get back to normal. This will, of course, affect Maja’s position in Amsterdam as its fellow stevedores try to find new markets to compensate for this (coming) decrease. The equipment of a bulk stevedore is the same, it is not so difficult to enter the markets in which Maja specializes.

A recently new development is the arrival of so-called ‘big material handlers’, such as the Sennebogen 885 and Mantsinen 300, which are now installed in the port of Amsterdam; these machines are direct competitors to Maja’s floating cranes. They are easier to operate, offer higher production per hour, have less fuel consumption and maintenance.

In 2023, Maja will start to operate a terminal with a berth of 215m and a draught of 11.1m. On this terminal a Liebherr 550 mobile harbour crane will operate.