Southern Cement celebrates record milestone at Port of Ipswich

Other Businesses

ABP Property

Our property division brings together an unrivalled land bank spanning 21 multi-modal locations around the country, with 960 hectares of port-based development land.

ABPmer

Drawing on 60 years of experience, ABP Marine Environmental Research (ABPmer) provides specialist marine environmental research and consultancy services.

UK Dredging

UK Dredging (UKD) operates the largest British-owned dredging fleet and specialises in the provision of reliable and cost effective port maintenance dredging services.

Image Caption: ABP Commercial Manager, Neal Birkett (left) and Dean Wessels, Operations Manager at Southern Cement (right) celebrating the company’s milestone at the Port of Ipswich

The Port of Ipswich, owned by Associated British Ports (ABP), the UK’s leading and best-connected port operator, has seen its customer Southern Cement reach a 3 million tonne milestone of imported cement this month.

Arriving from Bilbao last week, the general cargo vessel MV Arklow Raider was carrying a shipment of over 4,600 tonnes of cement, which helped push the total number of tonnes discharged by Southern Cement since they first started actively using the port in 2002 to 3 million.

Dean Wessels, Operations Manager at Southern Cement, commented: “We are delighted to reach the milestone of 3 million tonnes of cement through our operation at Ipswich. We could not have achieved this without the commitment of our employees and business partners. Our relationship with ABP has allowed us to grow our business to become the supplier of choice when it comes to cementitious products.”

Situated at the head of the River Orwell, 12 miles from the open sea, the Port of Ipswich handles around 2 million tonnes of cargo per year. It is the UK’s leading grain export port and also specialises in a range of other products such as fertiliser, cement and aggregates.

Paul Ager, ABP Divisional Port Manager – East Anglia, added: “This fantastic achievement is testament to our long-standing partnership with Southern Cement, as a valued customer in Ipswich.

“We look forward to continuing to play an important role in supporting the UK construction industry, so that we can contribute to the growth of the region’s economy in future.”