Port of Southampton
The Port of Southampton is a passenger and cargo port in the central part of the south coast of England. The modern era in the history of the Port of Southampton began when the first dock was inaugurated in 1843. After the Port of Felixstowe, Southampton is the second largest container terminal in the United Kingdom, with a handled traffic of 1.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units. It also handles cruise ships, roll-on roll-off, dry bulk, and liquid bulk.
In 2015, DP World extended its operating license for DP World Southampton until 2047, following a deal with Associated British Ports. DP World is the sole owner of DP World Southampton, having acquired ABP's 49 per cent stake, having been owned and operated by ABP since 1982.
It is the busiest cruise terminal and second largest container port in the UK. By volume of port traffic, Southampton is a Medium-Port City globally.
The port is located between the confluence of the rivers Test and Itchen at the head of the mile-wide drowned valley known as Southampton Water. The mouth of the inlet is protected from the effects of foul weather by the mass of the Isle of Wight, which gives the port a sheltered location. Additional advantages include: a densely populated hinterland; proximity to London, and good rail and road links to the rest of Britain which bypass the congestion of London.
The average tidal range is approximately, with 17 hours per day of rising water thanks to the port's "double tides". These allow the largest container and cruise ships access to the port for up to 80 per cent of the time, according to the container terminal operator DP World Southampton. This is a result of tidal flow through the English Channel: high tide at one end of the Channel occurs at the same time as low tide at the other end. Points near the centre have one high water as the tidal swell goes from west to east, another as it then goes from east to west. Neither is as high as the one at each end of the English Channel.
The principal berths are divided into three areas:
- The Old Docks at the junction of the Rivers Test and Itchen, consisting of berths 20–49
- The New Docks, known as the Western Docks, built by the Southern Railway, consisting of Berths 101-110; and
- The Container Terminal, originally consisting of berths 201-207. This terminal was constructed entirely on reclaimed land, with berth 201 opening in 1968. However the berths at the container terminal have since been renamed. Berths 207 to 204 are now berths SCT 1 to 4 respectively, and the reconstructed berths 201/202 now SCT 5.
Cruise shipping
Passenger terminals
There are five active passenger terminals in the port of Southampton servicing passenger ships.- Queen Elizabeth II Terminal, berth 38/39 opened 1966, modernised 2003 and 2016.
- Mayflower Terminal, berth 106 opened 1960, modernised 2003 and 2015
- City Terminal, berth 101 opened 2003, upgraded 2007
- Ocean Terminal, berth 46 opened 2009
- Horizon Cruise Terminal, berth 102, opened summer 2021
Operators
The first full-time cruise ship was Ceylon, a P&O liner converted in 1881. Until then, ship owners had occasionally used liners for off-season cruising. From 1881 the cruise industry grew slowly until the 1970s, when major shipping operators were badly affected by the rise in popularity of long-haul jet air travel. Faced with falling demand for their mail and passenger services, they turned their business to holiday cruises: voyages that usually end where they begin, providing short leisure visits to other ports on the way.At Southampton at the time, the ships affected included Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 and the P&O vessels SS Oriana and SS Canberra: all originally built as fast liners, they began to offer a growing variety of cruises. Through the 1990s cruising's growing popularity saw huge increases in ship size and numbers as well as terminal capacity, with Southampton becoming one of the busiest cruise ports in the world.
Cruise ship sizes have risen substantially in recent years. The largest vessel using the Port of Southampton is P&O Cruises Arvia, with a length of, a gross tonnage of 184,700 and a passenger capacity of 5,200. In 2005, the number of passengers using the port totalled 738,000, higher than it had been in any one year of the previous century. Since then it has increased year on year, and the figure for 2019 was 1.9 million passengers, representing approximately 520 calls by passenger ships. On average, each docking is worth £1.25 million to the local economy. The Port of Southampton is the busiest cruise turnaround port in Northern Europe.
Southampton is now the base of these cruise ships:
- P&O Cruises –, Arvia,,,,
- Celebrity Cruises – Celebrity Silhouette
- Cunard –,,
- Princess Cruises – Royal Princess, Sky Princess
- Royal Caribbean –
- Cunard – Queen Mary 2, the only vessel left with a scheduled transatlantic service to New York from Southampton.
- AIDA - German cruise line part of Carnival - fourteen ships
- Azamara Cruises - four ships
- Crystal Cruises – based in Los Angeles; three ships
- Costa Cruises– part of Carnival; Italian flag; eleven ships
- Disney Cruise Line - based in Florida; five ships
- Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines – four smaller ships
- MSC Cruises - eighteen ships; Italian based
- Norwegian Cruise Line - seventeen ships; headquarters in Miami.
- Oceania Cruises - six ships ; headquarters in Miami.
- Regent Seven Seas Cruises - nine ships headquarters in Miami.
- Saga Cruises – two ships Spirit of Adventure and Spirit of Discovery, offering cruises for the over-50s
- Silversea Cruises – Monaco based; Italian flag owned by Royal Caribbean Cruise Line; six ships.
- TUI Cruises – based in Germany, six ships.
Freight and cargo
Containers
The container terminal is operated by DP World Southampton. The container port has of land – not counting the in the older Western Docks – available for port operations. Loading and unloading operations can be performed simultaneously on four large deep-sea container ships, plus one smaller ship in length.This container terminal is Britain's second largest deep-sea terminal, after that at Felixstowe. The railway line from Southampton has been upgraded to the relatively large W10 loading gauge on the route between the container port and the ABP terminal in Birmingham, where it links with lines that have already received this treatment. This allows the railway line to handle the taller containers now in widespread use.
Permission was obtained from the Marine Management Organisation to extend the container terminal into berths 201 and 202. The quay was rebuilt in 2014 to accommodate vessels. The depth of water in the main channel was increased by dredging to. This enabled the berths to accommodate the largest container vessels in service. Work on the project was undertaken by VolkerStevin, part of the VolkerWessels group.
On 20 September 2013, it was announced that Channel Island Lines would continue the "lift-on lift-off" container service between Southampton and Jersey and would purchase the MV Huelin Dispatch from Associated British Ports who in turn had purchased her from the receiver of the Huelin-Renouf bankruptcy.
Vehicles
The port has facilities for the import and export of vehicles. Seven multi-storey car park type storage facilities have been constructed, to provide of above-ground storage. Roll on – roll off vehicle transporters serve all parts of the world; car trains as well as car transporter lorries provide vehicle transport to and from the port within Britain. Southampton has been the UK's leading port for vehicle exports in recent years.Bulk cargos
The terminal for bulk goods handles over a million tons annually. A facility processes waste glass into glass cullet, suitable for making new glass bottles. Crushed rocks, gravel, sand, fertilisers, grains and scrap are also handled. A Rank Hovis flour mill formerly dealt with 70,000 tonnes of wheat each year but closed in 2018.Perishable foods
There are of refrigerated storage facilities and a dedicated terminal for fresh fruits and vegetables. The port handles 80,000 tons of such produce, much of it from the Canary Isles, each year.Oil and petroleum products
The Esso refinery at nearby Fawley is the largest in the country, providing 20 per cent of the nation's capacity. Its mile-long marine terminal handles 2000 ship movements and 22 million tons of crude oil annually, making it the largest independently owned docks facility in Europe. A direct pipeline, completed in 1972, connects the refinery with the West London Terminal in Hounslow, supplying aviation fuel for Heathrow Airport. A replacement pipeline was completed in November 2023.The BP Oil Terminal at Hamble provides storage and distribution facilities for crude oil and refined petroleum products. The crude oil arrives by pipeline, and leaves in sea tankers, destined for refineries; refined products reach the terminal by ship and pipeline and are then distributed to customers by road tanker, ship and pipeline.