Photo: © Port of Rotterdam, Eric Bakker.
Port of Rotterdam powers ahead sustainably
Europe’ s largest port, the Port of Rotterdam on the Netherlands’ west coast, is working towards an ambitious goal: achieving CO 2 neutrality by 2050. Currently responsible for around 15 % of the country’ s total CO 2 emissions, the Port is undergoing a major transformation. A wide range of projects, spanning hydrogen, carbon capture, and lowcarbon fuels are now underway, with stainless steel playing a critical enabling role across each of them.
By Joanne McIntyre, Stainless Steel World
Port of Rotterdam is by far the largest port in Europe, handling up to 470 million tonnes / year of cargo. Overshadowing its smaller counterparts in Antwerp, Hamburg and Le Havre, Rotterdam is also Europe’ s largest oil-refining cluster, a major chemical production hub, and the main energy import gateway for LNG, crude oil and hydrogen. The Port’ s strategic importance is enormous: it’ s deeply integrated with Germany’ s industrial base, with an extensive pipeline network connecting it to all of Europe, including key chemical clusters. Now known as the hydrogen hub for Europe, the Port of Rotterdam has, in recent years, turned its focus to renewable energy production, CCS, SAF and biochemicals. Let’ s take a look at several large-scale projects which showcase this focus.
HYDROGEN CLUSTER – Conversation Park One The Port of Rotterdam is on its way to becoming Europe’ s Hydrogen Hub. It will achieve this by importing large volumes of green hydrogen from countries where there is space to generate solar, wind and water power; and by producing green hydrogen on-site using wind energy from the North Sea. Conversion Park One will eventually contain four green hydrogen facilities. The aim is to have the park, with a capacity of 2.5 gigawatts of hydrogen plants, completed by 2030. Four hydrogen plants will be built on 24 hectares, converting renewable energy from offshore wind parks into green hydrogen through electrolysis. Conversion Park Two will eventually add another 1GW of green H 2 production. The four green H 2 plants are:
32 Stainless Steel World May 2026 www. stainless-steel-world. net