At the turn of October the first sod is cut for the construction of a new warehouse in Västra Hamnen. The warehouse will be built with the purpose of storing pellets for the energy company Göteborg Energi. The pellets will arrive to us by vessel, with an annual volume of initially 45 - 60,000 tonnes which will gradually increase to around 90,000 tonnes per year.

The length of our agreement is 5 years with an option for another 3 years. Once the agreement has expired our intention is to move the warehouse to a new area on, or near, the current quarry.

The warehouse is expected to be completed by the end of February 2022 and we look forward to follow the construction process. The general contractor for the project is Hallgruppen and MEXL is the construction- and quality manager.

We currently have a world trade that is at a turbulent stage. The pandemic and the standstill in the Suez Canal this summer, have contributed to changes in the container volumes around the world. This has led to significantly increased sea freight costs, among other things

In connection to this we at Port of Uddevalla have noticed a large increase of the volumes in our terminal operations. These operations, mainly based on storing and stuffing of containers, has increased by up to 30 percent during this year. We have been able to meet the needs and requirements that our customers have set during this time, despite the sometimes short notice.

With our geographical location, 70 kilometers north of Scandinavia's largest container port in Gothenburg, we are an attractive choice for our clients when it comes to to handle these volumes.

Our newly hired Resource Planner Christian Magnusson started working with us in August. Christian has taken over as Recource Planner after our Planning Assistants, who are both retiering within a short period. In connection to that the position was converted into a civil servant employment. Christian will thus be the new face towards our permanent- and extra employed stevedors.

As Resource Planner he is responsible for continuously planning personnel and machine resources for the port's stevedoring and terminal operations and ensures that the right people are in the right place at the right time. This may for example involve; putting together gangs of staff to unload or load ships or adding resources for receiving goods arriving by rail or truck.

Christian has previously worked at the grocery chain ICA's central warehouse in Kungälv for more than 20 years. His latest position there was as Operational Flow Optimizer, a job that is largely reminiscent of the job as a Resource Planner with us. Christian himself says that he looks forward to learning the new job, getting to know all his new colleagues and being part of the company's continued digital journey.

With his background and experience, Christian will be an asset to us and we warmly welcome him as a new employee in our company.

We are right now investing heavily in maintenance and improvements in our port. Added personnel resources and the maintenance system Idus, introduced last year, has helped us to prioritize and structure our preventive work. In the long-term this will lead to increasing our operational reliability and improving our work environment.

Some examples of what we have done during the year is upgrading the railway in the port area with three new railway switches and 450 new sleepers. We have also replaced the gate at the main entrance to Sörvik with a new and improved one.

The port crane number 32 has been upgraded with new start pulleys and wires, to make sure it will continue to function smoothly and reliably. In our warehouses, located at Skeppsholmspiren and Sörvik, we have replaced the luminaires to get a more efficent and energy-saving lighting.

Last but not least, we are currently installing a modern ventilation system and new windows on to our office building and workshop, which will contribute to a better working environment for our employees.

As society now begins to open up there are most certainly many of us who have a lot of questions, about how the period we have just gone through will affect the future. Is working at home now a thing of the past? How do we greet each other? Question marks in finance and on top of that we have election year around the corner in Sweden.

We have cautiously started to open up our office to visitors again, in accordance with the Swedish Public Health Agency's guidelines, and customers and suppliers will be able to meet us again. In just a few weeks time I have had more physical meetings than during the whole past year. And in these meetings, ideas and questions are being handled in a completely different way, than they are during an online meeting. It feels fun and exciting when things are finally happening as we slowly are getting back to normal. However, a lot has worked just as usual during the pandemic. Vessels come and go, cargo goes in and out, maintenance and renovations are being made and everyone here has contributed to this in an absolutely fantastic way.

For the period of January to August we had a result of SEK 3.9 millions, our cargo volumes were just below the budget of 650,000 tonnes and we are positive about reaching the forecast result of 2021. As we now are starting to put the puzzle together for next year, my prospects are also positive. New customers and volumes will give us rewards in the form of growth. As for example, most of our areas to handle to handle project cargo, such as wind turbines, has already been filled.

As a result of this we now need to strengthen both our Forwarding- and our Stevedoring Department, in order to meet the level of service. We look forward to welcome more new colleagues at Port of Uddevalla.

So where are we headed then? Well, time will tell. But I am sure that we have an exciting journey ahead of us.