Contingency plan prevents delays as Durban port entrance closes

TERRY HUTSON
THE TEMPORARY opening of four new deepwater berths at the Point to coincide with the closure of the port entrance helped prevent delays at Durban’s container terminal recently.
The two closures of the entrance, each for two periods of 36 hours, were necessary to enable core sampling of the channel ahead of the planned widening and deepening next year. But at the same time fears were raised that congestion would result.
As a result SA Port Operations (Sapo) and the NPA got together with the shipping lines and used the new berths to place ships on layby.
According to Joe Madlala, acting business unit manager at the container terminal, the contingency plan made it possible to have sufficient ships on hand so that once operations had been completed on each vessel, another was available within the port to take its place.
“Without this contingency plan in place, ships would have been left waiting outside the port while we had no working berths and we could have lost a total of 72 hours,” he said.
As a result figures reveal that the closing of the harbour entrance had little effect on DCT operations. During September 7 and 8 DCT handled 2812 and 2906 containers respectively each day, which is about average.
By September 14, the last day of the closure the average delay at DCT had reduced to 16 hours forecast for the next week.
Meanwhile preparations were underway last week to test one of the new shoreside gantry cranes by placing a ship underneath, weather permitting. The three new cranes are expected to be fully commissioned early
in October.