Hunterston Terminal

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Location: near Fairlie, North Ayrshire
Company: Clydeport
Comments: Hunterston Terminal is a coalhandling port located at Hunterston on the
Firth of Clyde, operated by Clydeport. Hunterston, with its one-mile long jetty, is able
to handle modern ships of any size. At the port, an overhead conveyor linked to two gantry cranes carries coal to a railhead on the Ayrshire Coast Line railway. Clydeport
claim an unloading rate of 2,400 tonnes of coal per hour. The conveyor is also linked to a ship loader which loads coal into smaller ships on the inner berth, this coal is transported to Manchester and Belfast amongst other places. Among other users, coal from Hunterston Terminal supplies Longannet power station in Fife and the Drax power station in Yorkshire. The resulting coal traffic has been a major reason for the reopening of the Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine rail link. The route between Hunterston and Glasgow via Paisley is currently the only route for the coal flows to Longannet power station. Operating hours: 24 hours, daily, year round. Coal storage area for up to 1.3 m tonnes. Coal stock holding areas for on-site merchants.
Railhead loading: 100 tand 44 t wagons; able to accommodate 5 trains simultaneously. Wheeled shovel: 40 lorries of 28 t every hour. These facilities comprise two rapid loading bunkers that can load 1500 tonne payload trains in less than an hour, along with a 50 hectare stockyard capable of holding over a million tonnes of coal. This has enabled Hunterston to become one of the major players in the imported coal market. Its maximum throughput is 6.5m tonnes per annum.

Originally called Hunterston Ore Terminal it was intended to handle iron ore for British Steel's Ravenscraig steelworks. Existing facilities on the River Clyde were unsuitable for increasingly large vessels.