Complementary or competitive?

It has been a matter of some debate
whether or not ports such as Maputo
or the soon-to-be-opened harbour at
Ngqura in the Eastern Cape will constitute
a real threat to the status of Durban as the
country’s leading port.
Some analysts believe that the role
of the other ports should and will be
complementary rather than competitive,
and Transnet appears to concur by seeing
the Ngqura development as a port that
will help relieve the pressure on Durban
at peak times. With this in mind Transnet
has continued with a policy of increasing
capacity at Durban.
When Ngqura opens in October this
year it will come at a time when congestion
reports have become a thing of the past,
with pressures on existing terminal
facilities having long since lifted. But in
any case Transnet says that the intention
is to market Ngqura as a transhipment
terminal, aimed at capturing a significant
number of containers destined for East and
West Africa as well as the Indian Ocean
region generally.
In this Transnet has a good chance
of succeeding, but it will bring new
challenges not just to Durban but to
Port Louis in Mauritius as well – and an
interesting couple of years lie ahead for
port observers.
According to Transnet statistics,
transhipments handled at the Port of
Durban during the 2008 financial year
amounted to 617 478 TEUs – that was 24%
of the total containers handled by the port
and a small increase year on year of this
type of cargo, but still a significant portion
of the total containers handled by the port.
According to Solly Letsoalo, Transnet
Port Terminal’s chief operating officer,
the majority of Durban’s transhipment
containers were destined for “international”
ports.
This is probably the main ‘challenge’
facing Durban in the next few years.
During 2008 the port handled 2.56 million
TEUs – an increase of less than 2% on the
previous year – and indications are that
2009 may see an actual decrease, the first
time this has happened for some years.
Any movement of transhipment cargo
to Ngqura instead of Durban will therefore
succeed in further reducing volumes at
Durban by a fairly substantial amount,
while also acting as a significant ‘safety
valve’ for the release of pressure on a
straining Durban port when busier
times return.
Maputo – only alternative?
Realtors always say that when selling a
house one of the most important factors is
always position, position, position, and this
principal applies equally to ports in relation
to their markets.
In that regard it is only Maputo that
can act as a realistic alternative to Durban
– no matter what the lobbyists for the
new Eastern Cape port might suggest.
But Maputo port comes with its own
challenges, not the least being that it is
not currently geared to handle any sudden
substantial increases in container volumes,
either in terms of terminal capacity or in
regard to the size of ships that Maputo
can handle.
Which raises another other question –
what is it that influences where ships will
call? Ships will always call where market
forces dictate – and in this regard the tail
seldom wags the dog as some shipping
lines have suggested.
But at the same time the ports have to
be capable of accommodating the type and
size of ships that other market forces are
dictating – such as the cascade effect which
has seen South Africa already receiving
calls from ships of 5 000
and 6 000-TEU capacity
long before any of the ports
have been suitably readied
to receive them.
9000-TEU ships
As is reported elsewhere
in this feature, the port of
Durban has undergone a
major entrance channel
widening and deepening
programme mainly for this
purpose, and will be able to
accommodate ships of up to
9 000-TEU capacity if necessary. In
that respect Transnet is wisely planning
ahead of demand and – together with
a similar programme of deepening the
container terminal basin at Cape Town along
with the development of Ngqura – South
Africa will be well equipped to handle these
much larger ships.
But at Durban sadly none of the
container berths have yet received any
remedial work in preparing them to receive
ships with a draught greater than 12.5m.
Geotechnical surveys of the areas
alongside each container berth have been
concluded and Transnet will soon be in
a position to make a decision on whether
further action to deepen the actual
container berths can proceed. But even
with the utmost haste, for which Transnet
is unfortunately not noted, it is unlikely
that Durban will have deep water container
berths to handle a fully loaded late
generation container ship for some
years to come.
Currently only Ngqura meets the
requirements here, although work at
deepening the berths at Cape Town is well
advanced, but both are constrained by
being located further away from the main
Gauteng markets.
This may well result in Ngqura
becoming a transhipment port for Gauteng
cargoes with a system of feedering
containers to Durban for onward land
transport to Gauteng introduced.