Teesport

Teesport is a large sea port beside the River Tees in Redcar and Cleveland. It lies about two kilometres inland from the North Sea and six kilometres east of Middlesbrough. The port covers 200 hectares along the river’s southern bank and handles over 56 million tonnes of cargo each year. More than 6,000 ships call at Teesport annually, making it one of the biggest ports in Western Europe. Most of the cargo consists of steel, chemicals, manufactured goods and retail products. Teesport is the main logistics centre for companies in the Northeast of England Process Industry Cluster. Its bulk terminals move millions of tonnes of potash, salt and steel slabs every year. Two modern container quays can handle half a million TEU, while a deep-sea cargo quay serves major shipping lines such as CMA CGM. P&O Ferries runs regular sailings to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge, and Renault imports thousands of cars through the port. The site also includes a cement plant, a landfill using former dock land and a new renewable energy plant under construction. Visitors can see the wide river and the long quays where ships load and unload. The container terminals stretch for hundreds of metres, with cranes towering over the docks. Alongside the water, dry cargo wharves handle minerals and chemicals. The landside area contains large warehouses and storage yards linked by rail to the national network. The port’s history is visible in the old submarine base buildings and the remains of earlier oil refineries.