Mr. Cor Breekweg founded Marcor in 1997 and named the company by combining his first name with that of his wife Mary. He started with a floating grab crane and weighing tower, which was primarily used to handle grains, oilseeds and derivatives for the food and feed sector.
Cor had the vision to expand the company’s floating cranes and weighing towers to handle the growing volume of agricultural commodities arriving at the Port of Rotterdam. The port was already serving as a key European hub for transshipments onto barges supplying cargoes to the Netherlands, Germany and other countries
through a network of hinterland waterways.
In late 1997, Cor found an equity partner capable of funding Marcor’s expansion in C. Steinweg – Handelsveem B.V., which took over the company. Within a few years, this fuelled the growth of Marcor with an installed equipment base of 4 floating grab cranes and 2 floating weighing towers. Cor remained closely involved with the company until 2003, before passing away.
The acquisition by C. Steinweg quickly led to synergies for shipping lines carrying break bulk commodities such as aluminium and copper to the Steinweg terminals in the Waalhaven area of the Port of Rotterdam. This led to the servicing of the first parcel combination carrier with break bulk, containers and dry bulk in 1999. The
simultaneous discharge of break bulk by Steinweg and dry bulk by Marcor turned out to be a successful concept. The two companies still provide this solution today and some customer relationships have lasted over 20 years. Throughout its history, Marcor has serviced many other terminal customers (at their jetties) operating in the agricultural, bio-energy, biomass, mineral and recycling industries.
In the years after, Marcor started servicing new parcelling business on public buoys with more complex cargo combinations of bulk products in loose bulk and jumbo bags with multiple separations.
In 1998, Marcor acquired a 33,000 DWT storage vessel known as the Marcor Bulk 1, which is used for the storage of multiple bulk commodities, as a home to our floating equipment and as a transshipment berth for board/board transfers from river barges, coastal vessels and ocean vessels. In combination with third-party push barges, Marcor has facilitated the storage of up to 150,000 metric tons of bulk products. In recent years, Marcor’s weighing towers have been upgraded with automatic sampling installations and spraying installations, facilitating a safe working environment for surveyors as well as serving customers requiring the treatment of agri-bulk (through service provider Trouw Nutrition Selko) against contaminants like salmonella. Sporadically, the weighing towers are also used for other operations, such as de-bagging of jumbo bags and sieving and demagnetizing foreign materials from biomass cargoes.
Over the years, Marcor’s commodity portfolio has diversified further into multiple sectors, allowing us to improve our skills in handling over 60 products.
In 2022, Marcor celebrated its 25 th anniversary. We are proud of the rich history we have experienced with many colleagues, customers and suppliers, many of whom have supported us from day one.
We look forward to further growth and development together with our customers. We aim to partially achieve this with the development of the Hartel Terminal as a dry bulk terminal, for which a positive investment decision was taken in Q4-2022.
At this deep-sea terminal, Marcor will start a new chapter, with the development of state-of-the-art warehousing facilities, new value-added services and options for our customers to distribute cargo by road, rail and sea. Marcor aims to phase in new operations and facilities throughout 2023-2024.