For Media and Press

Port of Oulu and Oritkari area logistics opportunities grow

Julkaistu 24.10.2016

The port of Oulu has undergone major development in recent years. However, there is no room for slowing down - quite the opposite, in fact. The investments that will be put in place in the coming years will take the Port of Oulu’s ability to provide service to a whole new level.

Port of Oulu traffic shows a strong positive trend. Despite the challenging economic situation, traffic through the Port of Oulu during the first nine months of the year grew by 3.7% compared with the year before. In exports the increase was very good +6.8%. "The vigorous growth shows that we have been making the right choices together with our partners and clients. The future development and expansion opportunities for the Port have also been taken into consideration", says Marko Mykkänen, Managing Director of Port of Oulu Ltd.

New detailed plan for Oritkari Harbour

Oritkari Harbour has also a new detailed city plan, something that was previously lacking. From the point of view of the Port, the new detailed plan promotes the implementation of the future infra plans and long-term development of Port of Oulu Ltd. Together with Oulu’s location as a hub of international road and rail links, the new plan provides an excellent starting point for Oulu’s position as a logistics centre in the North. The Port area will grow by about 100 hectares. This enables the provision of an extensive range of services for the needs of industry and trade in northern Finland.

A large-volume transport corridor that is both cost-effective and reliable is a must for both businesses operating in northern Finland and for the major projects about to be implemented here. For businesses, the new deep access channel to Oulu means both savings and better supply security. Thanks to a deeper channel and the use of larger vessels, the unit costs of sea transports will decrease by as much as 40%. Efficient and cost-effective logistics is a key requirement to ensure that as actors based in the North, we are able to compete with products and companies from Central Europe.

The Oulu Deep Channel project is progressing at great speed. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process is currently under way and is expected to be completed by the end of January 2017. Once all necessary permits have been obtained, the plan is to commence dredging during 2018. In the project, the harbour basin and the part of the channel that falls under the Port’s responsibility will be deepened from 10 to 12.5 metres.
Already there are over 50M€ planned logistics real-estate investments into Oritkari area and huge infrastructure investments under planning that will be realized in the coming years.

To sum up, one could say that the future of the Port looks very bright indeed - although a lot of development work still needs to be done and as the work continues new investment opportunities keep on popping up constantly.

Lähde: Port of Oulu