History and development

In 1973 the Eemshaven opened. Its opening was a direct result of the big industrial development in Western Europe during the fifties and sixties. Initially its aim was to provide room for large scale, new industrial development incorporating oil refineries and the (petro-) chemical industry. However, this initiative was frustrated by the oil crisis in the seventies and the following recession.

During the nineties it became clear that the Eemshaven’s development as an industrial port was an unsuccessful approach, which was therefore superseded by a new, more logistic orientated strategy. This new approach was developed by Groningen Seaports and focused on the northern corridor, i.e. the countries around the North Sea and the Baltic.

With the coming of the new Millennium this strategy proved to be successful. In 2001 for example, the port’s storage and trans-shipment activities increased by approximately 40%. It seems an obvious and necessary development seeing that the roads in the western part of the Netherlands are increasingly silting up. And furthermore, the distance between the industrial hart of Germany, the Ruhr, is exactly the same to the Eemshaven as it is to ‘mainport’ Rotterdam.