The construction of the new warehouse is at full swing in Västra hamnen. Walls and trusses have been raised and installed, the last stages of the concrete beam of the foundation have been cast and the work to backfill and asphalt has been completed. The work of rolling out and gluing the roofing canvas has begun and will, as soon as the weather allows, be completed.

We have also paved and arranged a new entrance to the eastern part of the warehouse, a new gate and fences will be placed shortly. The vast majority of the contractors in this construction have a local connection, which adds to our good feeling about this project!

The traffic between Port of Uddevalla and Philadelphia, USA has been fairly regular during the past year. In October, a two-year agreement, where Wagenborg Shipping will be operating the route, was signed.

The agreement means, every four to five week, we will have a vesselcall with destination USA. The cargo consists of mainly forest products; in the form of packaging materials, magazine paper, kraft paper and other special qualities. The cargo come from several Swedish and Norwegian mills, among others.

During this autumn and winter we have been trusted to assist Uddevalla's local energy company with loading pellets, for export to Norway and Denmark. The pellets are manufactured at Lillesjöverket in Uddevalla by Uddevalla Kraft, part of Uddevalla Energi. There will be a total of four shipments from the port, each occasion we will load approximately 4000 tonnes, or 5700 m³.

The pellets is stored in a warehouse at Sörvik and the reception of trucks is continuously. In order for us to handle the goods in a safe way the warehouse has been equipped with a new fire alarm and, of course, also an alarm system to detect carbon monoxide.

At the first shipment, which took place in October, Uddevalla Energi was on site and recorded a video. Please click on the button below to watch it.

Shipping was temporary affected by a stop in the fairway through Gothenburg, at the end of November. The stop was caused when a concrete foundation for the Göta River bridge was being demolished by blasting. Something went wrong and the explosion caused both the explosives and parts of the foundation to end up in the fairway, which had to be shut down. During the almost two-week stop, the Port of Uddevalla was able to assist sea traffic with both fast and flexible solutions.

As an example, we discharged 3,000 tonnes of pulp from the shipping company Wagenborg's M/V Lindeborg, which was originally on its way to Vänerhamn in Karlstad.

Andrej Gaskov was employed as a foreman in our stevedoring section at December 1st. He has been a part of our staff ever since 2009. Up until now he has mainly worked as a stevedore, altough in recent years he has also helped out as a foreman from time to time.

In the new role he is one of four foremen, who are responsible for leading and distributing the work of the various stevedoring and terminal assignments. Within the port, vessels, railway wagons and trucks are discharged and loaded and we also handle goods in warehouses and on storage areas on behalf of our customers. As a foreman, Andrej also participates in planning ahead of whats to come as well as solving problems that arise along the way. It is a varied work with constant changes.

-What I like most about my new role is that the working days are so varied, that the job is overall very flexible and that the sense of responsibility you get as a supervisor is rewarding for me. My colleagues tell me that they appreciate my calmness and humility, it feels good that they have confidence in me and my leadership. Andrej says.

We welcome Andrej in his new role and we hope that you will continue to enjoy your work with us!

As in previous years, we have chosen to replace Christmas gifts to our customers with a contribution to the Swedish Sea Rescue Society. They are a non-profit organization, which we hold close to our hearts. Swedish Sea Rescue Society are single handly responsible for 70 percent of all sea rescues in Sweden. With no governmental funding, ours and others support is needed to help them save lives at sea.

We got a relatively tough start to this year, as our result initially was negative. However, with a huge commitment from all of us, we managed to turn the earning trend to a positive one. As I now sum up the year, I feel completely satisfied with both our efforts and with our result. During the coming years we will add steady and longterm volumes, in the form of both exports of forest products to the US and import of pellets via Uddevalla. The construction of our new warehouse, which is being built to store these pellets, is in full swing.

Great efforts has been made to plan for the future of project cargo in Port of Uddevalla. There are some very long-term logistical decisions that needs to be made and in this segment everything needs to be meticulously calculated, in both financial and practical aspects. We have learned a lot trough this journey, especially when it comes to heavy transports. These are lessons that we will take with us in the future.

Our vision to become Sweden's most flexible port lives on and we look forward to continue to show this in practice as well. Your trust in us is important and our goal is that our employees, customers and owners should always feel safe with us. We have great confidence in the continued positive development for our port. Does this mean we expect cargo volumes to return to a normal state, after the effects of the pandemic? Yes, absolutely! Is the very short answer to that.

We recently hired nine new employees to our stevedoring department, as well as a new freight forwarder. On top of that, one of our former stevedores recently started working as a foreman instead. These new employements is another clear sign of our faith in the future. They clearly mark the level we have set, in order for us to meet the needs our customers have.

As you know we have multiple legs to stand on, in addition to our regular assignment. One of them is lay up of vessels. Uddevalla has an advantage, in addition to being a safe and very pleasant port to stay in, as we can connect the vessels to shore power. The number of lay-up vessels has been both stable and high for many years now but in the last six months they have left our quays, one by one. In writing moment, we only have one vessel at lay-up berth. The current market for the shipping companies are very good and the vessels are now back at sea, where they are most useful. If the need should arise sometime in the future, they are always welcome back to our port.

Christmas is now around the corner, our most heartfelt and familiar time. I wish that all of you are able to celebrate it with security and warmth.

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ulf Stenberg, CEO