The port of Uddevalla has been designated a national interest by the Swedish Transport Administration. Therefore, we have an important task to take care of vessels that are in need of a quay, both for shorter and longer periods. There can be many reasons why a vessel needs to be layed up, for example; fluctuations in the economy, change of ownership or repairs and upgrades.

The shipping companies usually use this time of standstill wisely, as it is a good opportunity for them to do reparations, modernize various systems and perform other needed work on board. For Uddevalla this means that the vessels, who use us as as their temporary home port, creates jobs for our local companies.

We always advise the shipping companies to choose local when they need help with performing various work on board their vessels. The vessels who are using Port of Uddevalla as their home port at the moment, have contributed to creating jobs for a number of local companies during their stay. We had a little chat with one of these companies, METS Technology. METS Technology is a rather new Uddevalla based company, which celebrated their 1st year in June. The company consists of 18 people and has a service-based offer on the engineering side.

-We assemble standard products into ready-made technically solutions, as we are a system integrator in electricity and automation. We always want to include and integrate sustainability in our technology. Electrification and battery operation are segments that we all have seen on the roads, now we are seeing an increase in this also by sea. Says Johan Marcusson, Managing Director at Mets Technology.

Right before the summer holidays, we placed an order of four new electric forklifts from the producer Linde. Two of these forklifts are of model Linde E35, with a free-lift stand. As these forklifts are low-built, they are ultimate to use when stowing bigbags in the vessels holds. They are also very well suited for stuffing and stripping of containers in our terminals.

If you look at the Sörvik quay, it can seem like we are only halfway through the renovation, as only half the length of the quay is casted and paved. But in reality, the work is much further advanced than that, as almost the entire southern part is now reinforced internally. All that remains is to reinforce a short piece of the quays inside on the north side, and completing the surface layer.

The old surface layer, which consisted of asphalt, has been torn down all the way to the concrete. The concrete below must then be demolished, using water with a high pressure, to give the new reinforced concrete layer a good grip. Instead of putting a new asphalt layer on the quay, wich would be approximately 7 cm thick, the quay will get a new 20 cm thick concrete layer. The concrete will be as high up as possible, along with the crane rails. This will mean that the the quay will withstand as heavy a load as possible.

Underneath the quay we are replacing the old L-supports with new and deeper ones, to prevent the sea from undermining the quay from the inside. On the inside of the quay we will also be putting asphalt, in three layers. The top coating will be done in the spring, to make sure that the ground has time to settle over the winter.

Finally the finished surface of the quay will be impregnated with a moisture barrier, so that the salty water surrounding it will not get into the concrete and reach the reinforcement. From the south side of the quay and 35 meters in, this is how far the renovation has come. Most of the impregnation will however probably be done in the spring. This is considering the concrete takes about a month to curate. But also because the impregnation needs dry weather for at least two days before and for two days after the execution.