Give it 5 years,
says P&ON
WHEN THE port of Coega comes on stream, will SA join the rather elite band of maritime countries capable of docking the new container superships - vessels with a container carrying capacity in excess of 6 000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units)?
The existing ports are too shallow to allow these deep-draft vessels to enter. Durban's 12 metre draft (at high tide) only allows for ships up to 3 000 TEU capacity. Cape Town's maximum draft allows for 2 600-3 000 TEU ships, while PE - with its 11m draft - is hard pushed to hit the 2 400 TEU level.
But Coega - with a 23m draft - will be able to take the superships, with depth to spare.
Coega is well-situated to become the natural hub in southern Africa, says a market study compiled for FTW by P&O Nedlloyd (PONL).
This allows the possibility of larger vessels calling at one SA port, and using smaller vessels as feeders to service other ports. This, with the block trains service to-and-from Gauteng, would create a hub and spoke type operation.
But, while the facility will be there, other factors will prevent the imminent arrival of the superships, according to the PONL survey.
We will not see the bigger vessels within the next 4 to 5 years, they predict.
They are first of all negated by the construction period for the harbour and the container terminal. That's a four-year project - minimum.
But SA is also not a big enough generator of cargo volumes to currently merit the superships. The contribution from other cargo-generating countries elsewhere in Africa is also minimal - with SA the largest cargo producer in a 6 000 kilometre radius, according to P&O reckoning.
And our economy is not growing fast enough to justify large-capacity vessels for that 4-5 year timespan.
Said the PONL report: Although the SA economy is presently performing exceptionally well - with both imports and exports growing at 4%-7% annually - current trade volumes do not justify bigger size vessels on the SA services.
The flow forecasts from Standard & Poor's Container Watch (See accompanying table) also point to some delay in cargo volumes reaching supership levels.
The forecast shows an increase of 31% over the next four years, said the PONL survey. But the reality is still that SA needs to generate substantially more than that to warrant the services of bigger type vessels on SA trade routes.
If SA does not produce enough volumes - cost savings can simply not be achieved.
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