An agreement with Valport Maritime Services Inc.
At a board meeting Wednesday morning, Sept. 17, port authority executives outlined a plan for Spliethoff Transport BV of Amsterdam to add a second monthly sailing of what’s called the Cleveland-Europe Express between Antwerp, Belgium and Cleveland.
The ship that Spliethoff committed to the month-long roundtrip sailing, the Fortunagracht, first arrived in Cleveland on April 18, loaded with containers of consumer and industrial goods, wind energy parts, machinery and other industrial equipment. It has made monthly calls on Cleveland ever since, unloading European goods bound for U.S. customers and taking on cargo for European customers of regional companies.
The board also approved an agreement with Valport Maritime Services Inc. The Canadian company will establish a base on Dock 22 for what will be called C-Port Maritime Services to develop cargo traffic on the Spliethoff ships between Cleveland and Quebec.
The European cargo service essentially is an entrepreneurial venture for the port authority. It is chartering the ship and guaranteeing Spliethoff the $850,000 monthly cost of the service in the hopes of building a service that will pay for itself and, perhaps, begin to show a profit. So far, after five monthly sailings, the port authority is showing a $2.87 million loss on the service. At this point, the Port Authority had expected that loss to be only $535,000.
