ICO Terminals is an international cargo breaker and a global leader in cargo handling. It handles everything from vehicles to trailer cargo, to anything that can be rolled on or off the boat. Alongside that, ICO Terminals’ offering includes vehicle processing, accessory repair, and delivery inspection for cars.
“We also offer services like shipping agency, customs clearing, and fiscal representation. Every administrative element related to customs clearing, import and export,” says Alain Guillemyn, Managing Director of ICO Terminals. “We can provide complete door-to-door logistics, from factory to dealer and client.”
ICO Terminals handles 2,500 vessels a year, carrying 1,000 trucks a day. In 2024 alone, ICO Terminals handled 2.3 million cars through its terminals, both import and export, for OEMs and dealers alike. The company services 23 shipping lines currently sailing, as well as 75 car manufacturers, with that number set to increase.
Part of the reason that ICO Terminals is able to achieve all this is because of its neutral position in the market.
“We work with the International Car Operators brand, giving us a neutral track in the market,” says Guillemyn. “We are serving shipping lines with cargo to or from Europe, and based on that neutral position we can serve 23 shipping lines to become a hub in Europe for cargo the way Heathrow is for airlines. The more shipping lines we serve, the more places in the world we can reach for import and export.”
This hub function also includes deepsea and shortsea connections, bringing everything together so that it can be redeployed elsewhere. On top of its excellent network of connections, ICO Terminals also boasts an incredible storage capacity, with 300 hectares for car storage alone.
“We have around 120,000 available places,” Guillemyn says. “We have a lot of free capacity and a lot of potential to expand horizontally with additional hectares, and vertically with multistorey facilities.”
At the same time, Guillemyn points out that impressive capacity is combined with an extensive array of services.
“We can provide all the services a customer wants. For example, we have five vehicle processing centres equipped with accessories that we can install on the car for the manufacturer,” Guillemyn explains, pointing to the leather seats and navigation systems ICO Terminals has installed.
As well as installing accessories, ICO also has facilities to comprehensively identify and repair damage to vehicles in transit.
“A very important service we offer is predelivery inspection,” says Guillemyn. “We prepare the car for the dealer, washing it, carrying out oil servicing, software upgrades, LPG installation and towing hooks. We can prepare all of that for the dealer on behalf of the car manufacturer.”
Greener Logistics
Speaking with Guillemyn, it is clear that he knows ICO Terminals is providing these services in an evolving market. In particular, that market is turning greener. That push for sustainability needs to be taken into account in every aspect of the product life cycle. The company has invested in eleven wind turbines to generate electricity for its facilities. Its fleet of loading vehicles has transitioned to electric, based on green electricity.
“Car manufacturers are placing more and more importance on green logistics,” Guillemyn says.
To meet that demand, ICO Terminals has been making large investments in on-shore power supplies, allowing cargo ships to be plugged directly into the electric grid so that they can turn off polluting generators.
“More and more cars are electrified,” Guillemyn says. “We are seeing ICE (internal Combustion Engine) and PEHV (Plug-In Hybrids), and an ongoing shift to BEVs from internal combustion cars. We need to adapt our terminals for these cars. It is an operational process. They need to be loaded and unloaded from the ship, you cannot jump-start them the way you would petrol vehicles. Behind the scenes, a lot of work is necessary to service all of the hundreds of loading stations in our terminal.”
Electrification is only one element of the equation, however. Calculating the environmental footprint of a vehicle now takes in its entire supply chain. Guillemyn tells us that ICO’s customers want to address environmental impact and sustainability even at the tender stage of a transaction.
“They want green steel, a green logistics chain, we require continuous improvement to meet these rising standards,” Guillemyn tells us.
Digitising Logistics
The drive for sustainability is only one of the changes the industry is seeing, however. Guillemyn also talks about the big investments ICO Terminals has been making in digitalisation and automation.
“The terminal has installed a system that determines the location of any given ship, where it needs to dock, the cargo it needs to load and where that cargo is on the terminal,” Guillemyn explains. “Its main objective is to ensure that the loaded and unloaded vehicles are driving as few kilometres as possible, finding the scenario that requires the fewest and shortest movements to complete its job.”
Intelligent loading stations are being installed so that when a car comes to a loading station it is immediately identified by chassis number and checked by its contract which will stipulate how much the car needs to be charged, then commands the charging station to charge the vehicle to the required amount.
“It has had an enormous impact, particularly with the green energy from our wind turbines,” reports Guillemyn. “Green energy is important for our cars, our buildings, and our cranes. Making sure we meet that need is one of our key challenges going forward.”
This is not just about incremental improvements, but about reshaping the industry for the future.
“What we are looking at is a change in the delivery model for the end user,” Guillemyn says. “The classic model is the car comes to the terminal, is transferred to the dealer, the customer gets their car and goes home. But more and more often we are seeing direct delivery to the customer themselves. They might come to the terminal to get their car. We provide these facilities to prepare the car, not for the dealer; but for the customer.”
