The biggest carrier of South Africa’s imports and exports, Danish-owned shipping giant Maersk, has confirmed last week’s industry report by Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) that last year’s congestion at the Port of Durban has been substantially alleviated.
Unfortunately, throughput issues at the Port of Cape Town continue to dog the often weather-bound port.
The world’s second-biggest container line by capacity is quoted in Business Day as saying: “We have seen an improvement in the Durban depot situation.
“However, we continue to experience space challenges in Cape Town.”
Maersk added that as a result its future updates would focus on depot turnaround options in Cape Town.
It is understood that clearing of backlog at Durban’s Container Terminal (DCT) Pier 2 has been especially successful, with only five vessels reportedly at anchor, a stark contrast to last year’s congestion when vessels idled at sea for up to three weeks before entering the port’s channel.
It is not clear to what extent TPT has succeeded in improving container clearing at Pier 2, the country’s busiest box terminal.
TPT had apparently intended to up the tempo from clearing 2 500 containers to 4 000 over three months.
At DCT Pier 1 the intention was to improve throughput from 1 200 to 1 500 over a quarterly period.
