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‘Top 12 cargo ports are underutilised’ 

By Editor
27 October 2015   |   1:45 am
THE world’s 12 largest cargo ports by volume are only using 48 per cent of their capacity in terms of throughput per quay crane.

cargo-NigeriaTHE world’s 12 largest cargo ports by volume are only using 48 per cent of their capacity in terms of throughput per quay crane.

Marine terminals should have to be fully utilised before they can be considered congested, Singapore-based port consultant Andy Lane with CTI Consultancy told the TPM Asia conference in Shenzhen, reported American Shipper.

Explaining further, Lane said: “Assets that are only 48 per cent utilised, I’m not sure how that lines up with ‘congestion.’”

In his presentation,  Lane highlighted that by boosting the average productivity of quay cranes from 28 moves per hour to 32 moves per hour and raising the number of hours the cranes are in use by 25 per cent, the 12 top cargo ports could unlock $800,000 in revenue per container crane – an estimated $1 billion across all the quay cranes at those collective ports.

Lane also argued that ships with capacity of 10,000 TEU (Twenty foot Equivalent)  and above should not be solely blamed for the congestion issues at ports worldwide, adding that Mega vessels are responsible for just 22 per cent of the container volume in Asia.

According to Lane, when it comes to congestion, there is another dynamic at play.”What causes the cargo surge is the mentality of loading ships at the end of the week in China (after factories work all week). That’s what causes the peak in China and the (feeder) ports in Asia. This has existed for years, and big ships exacerbate this. If we persist with bigger ships, we may need to revisit this mentality.”

The ripple effect of this schedule dynamic is that ships sail on the weekends from China, then arrive collectively at Southeast Asian hubs, and then at ports in North America and Europe since most services sail at relatively similar speeds.

Chief executive North Asia region at Maersk Line, Robbert Jan van Trooijen, noted at the conference two other factors that create uneven cargo flow. He said 60 per cent of monthly cargo gets shipped in the second half of the month because sales people realise they need to meet their monthly targets as month’s end draws nearer.

As a result, “end month calls tend to be oversubscribed and early calls tend to be undersubscribed,” he said.

The second factor Van Trooijen said is that shippers tend to wait out rate hikes by shipping lines “Just before a GRI goes into effect, there’s a cargo rush,”  noting  “And right after, shippers withhold cargo and wait for carriers to come off those higher rates. It’s a good bargaining tactic, but from a cargo flow perspective, it’s not effective.”

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