In 1966, the container made its debut in the port of Rotterdam. The introduction of this new phenomenon spurred some port companies to set up a special company focusing on the handling of containers: ECT. The stevedore acquired an own terminal in the Eemhaven (where the Home is presently located). In August 1967, the first official container ship moored here alongside the quay. It was the 'Atlantic Span', owned by shipping company ACL.

Initially just a small company, ECT already handled as many as 160,000 containers in 1970. Of course, nobody could conceive back then that this would be just the beginning: in 1975, ECT handled almost 500,000 containers, in 1983 volumes had risen to more than a million. In the meantime, a new ECT terminal was constructed at the Maasvlakte, situated almost directly on the North Sea: the Delta Terminal. Some newspapers called the decision to build there the 'biggest logistic blunder of this century.' Practice however proved them wrong. After its official opening in March 1985, the Delta Terminal quickly turned out to be a success.

In 1988, ECT entered into a contract with Sea-Land for the establishment of a dedicated terminal for this shipping company at the Maasvlakte. This first ever robotized container terminal caught the attention of the whole world. Most of the operations were - and still are - fully automated. Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) take care of the transport between quay crane and stack. In the stack, all the work is carried out by Automated Stacking Cranes (ASCs). The Delta/Sea-Land terminal officially opened its doors in June of 1993.

ECT did not rest on its laurels. Together with the Port of Rotterdam, the company in the early nineties drew up plans for even more new terminals at the Maasvlakte. In 1996 this resulted in the opening of the Delta Dedicated East Terminal and early 2000 in the opening of the Delta Dedicated West Terminal. At both terminals, the successful automation concept using AGVs and ASCs is implemented.

Following the take-over of Sea-Land by Maersk in 1999, ECT itself has been managing the Delta/Sea-Land Terminal under the name Delta Dedicated North Terminal for new customers. ECT hived off the Delta Multi User Terminal. It was the only of the four Maasvlakte-based ECT terminals where a conventional transshipment concept was still used.

Since early 2002, ECT has been part of the Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Port Holdings Group (HPH). Further expansions followed. In 2004, ECT acquired the Hanno Terminal in the Waalhaven. In December of that same year, consensus was reached about the construction of the Euromax Terminal Rotterdam on the northern side of the Maasvlakte. Since June 2010 the Euromax Terminal Rotterdam has started operations.

As of 2009 feeders and barges have their own dedicated terminal within the Delta complex, the so called Delta Barge Feeder Terminal, situated at the tip of the Delta peninsula.

Development of volume (TEU) at the ECT terminals