Amer Shipping and Van de Graaf & Meeusen launch TriBarge in Antwerp

Two Dutch family-owned inland operators have committed to an 85 m dry cargo newbuilding at Concordia Damen as the anchor of a new chartering venture in Antwerp, marking their first combined push into the Belgian and French shipper market. Amer Shipping and Van de Graaf & Meeusen have named the company TriBarge, and the vessel itself will carry the name Porta Sud when it enters service in the second half of 2027.

The pairing joins a network of close to 60 vessels moving roughly 9m tonnes of cargo per year — the annual freight Amer Shipping already hauls across the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland. Van de Graaf & Meeusen, based in Ridderkerk, adds a fleet of pushboats and barges focused on the dry bulk market, plus chartering experience that TriBarge will draw on from day one.

TriBarge will trade dry cargo, general cargo and breakbulk across the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp region, the German canal network, the Moselle and inland waterways stretching as far as Basel. Through Stream Shipping — an existing venture between Amer Shipping and German cooperative MSG eG — the new company can also reach destinations as distant as the Black Sea, effectively giving shippers a single chartering counter for most of continental Europe's inland grid.

The choice of Antwerp is deliberate. "The move comes just weeks after Amer Shipping returned to Concordia Damen for another two 110 m CDS Dry Cargo newbuildings, lifting its programme of shallow-draught vessels to six," the partners noted, underlining how quickly capacity commitments have followed the commercial launch.

Why an 85-metre vessel matters

Porta Sud's dimensions are the commercial point of the order. The newbuilding will be designed to access smaller inland ports, tributaries and canals as well as the major rivers, meaning TriBarge can quote shipments into secondary destinations that larger units cannot physically serve.

That flexibility sits at the centre of the venture's pitch to Belgian and French shippers: one operator able to combine river-scale volumes with last-mile access to constrained berths.

For forwarders and cargo owners in the ARA region, a new chartering counter with committed newbuilding tonnage arriving in 2027 adds an alternative in a market where shallow-draught capacity is often the binding constraint on routings through France and southwestern Germany.

A fleet programme, not a one-off order

The TriBarge order extends an already running newbuild programme. The two 110 m CDS Dry Cargo vessels ordered weeks earlier are scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2027 and the second quarter of 2028, bringing Amer's shallow-draught series to six hulls.

The first of that pair, AM Lianova, will join Stream Shipping, while the second will enter Amer's own fleet — a split that spreads the new tonnage across both the cooperative's Black Sea-facing network and Amer's core Western European trades.

Staffing and timeline

TriBarge will operate from Antwerp's Tweede Havendak, with Devin van Dam joining as a chartering broker on November 1. A second Belgian broker is expected to come on board in the second quarter of 2027, timed to the run-up to Porta Sud's entry into service.

The staffing sequence signals a staged build-out: commercial coverage first, new tonnage second. By the time the second broker arrives, the venture will be roughly two quarters from taking delivery of its first dedicated vessel.

With six shallow-draught newbuildings now on order across the group and a chartering venture opening in Antwerp this autumn, the Dutch duo is positioning itself to capture dry bulk and breakbulk demand on the Rhine-Moselle-Scheldt system just as that tonnage begins to deliver from late 2027.