Sif Holding and Port of Rotterdam have agreed on the lease of an additional 20 hectares industrial land, adjacent to Sif’s existing operations at Maasvlakte 2 near Rotterdam.

This expansion facilitates Sif’s new business opportunity in response to demand from new and existing clients for marshalling space and onshore support services for offshore wind.

This demand is underpinned by the agreement between Sif and DEME Offshore for a major contract on marshalling services starting October 2019.

Sif has leased approximately 42 ha land at Maasvlakte 2 since 2015 for a 25-year period. On this land, Sif realized its assembly facility that was taken into operation in 2016. Increasing client demand for marshalling services has propelled this 20 ha expansion agreement which has an expiration date parallel to the already leased 42 ha.

The location is well situated for new offshore wind projects (1 hour steaming to open sea and short sailing distances to new wind farms in the French-Belgian-UK and Dutch waters) and the already world-class quay facilities will be expanded by 200 meters by mid-2023. The quay will have a guaranteed nautical depth of 16.5m NAP, allows close-to-quay jacking and offers a surface load of 10 Kn/m2.

For offshore wind construction services, contractors require storage and handling services like cranage and transportation. For DEME Offshore’s Borssele 1+2 project, 47 monopiles, 94 transition pieces and 94 anode cages will be shipped to Maasvlakte 2 from Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom to be assembled and prepared for offshore construction.

Sif will facilitate DEME Offshore and future clients with SPMT’s, gantry cranes, crawler cranes and telescopic cranes for onsite transportation and marshalling activities from our MV2 location. Double-digit million-euro annual revenues are expected from this activity within 2 to 3 years.

Sif Holding CEO Fred van Beers: ”This 20 Ha extension perfectly fits our strategy to expand our services to the offshore wind industry with complex marshalling and terminal activities for offshore wind. This additional lease agreement is a further proof of our belief in the strong bond between the Port of Rotterdam and SIF. We foresee a structural demand for these services and are proud to be selected by DEME Offshore who is our launching customer for these marshalling services when preparing and realizing their offshore wind project Borssele 1-2”.