CT needs more trailers and cranes MOL manager speaks out as December delays loom

Ray Smuts AS CONTAINER line operators count the cost of wind delays and disrupted schedules, Cape Town business is in a quandary over whether the port will rise to the occasion as export volumes increase dramatically over the next six months. Concerns have been voiced by Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Albert Schuitmaker and Captain Michael Valcic, MOL’s Cape Town-based tonnage manager. “Everybody is concerned about the impact of delays,” said Valcic, who believes there are ways for Sapo personnel to work smarter and in so doing minimise delays to vessels. The likelihood of more delays seems inevitable with the traditionally windy December looming, the number of holidays and the prospect of some ‘festive spirit’ no-shows. According to Valcic, the recent wind coupled with hold-ups at the container terminal caused a combined delay of 68 hours to two of the company’s vessels, MOL Oueme and MOL Volta, which is estimated to have cost the company $60000 and has obvious impacts on profit margins. Cape Town needs to become more efficient says Valcic. “There are only three tugs, one of which is on standby for Saldanha. Our understanding is that passenger vessels, tankers and oil-related vessels like rigs take precedence over container ships, but for me the best solution lies in two tugs dedicated solely to the container terminal. “Container ships have to be on time to make their next berthing window, so three or four hours lost means you have missed the window and that is not acceptable in today’s competitive marketplace.” Productivity can so easily be adversely affected. Valcic recalls an incident involving a crane driver who stopped work before the end of his shift in order to catch a bus home when only ten boxes remained to be discharged. The task eventually took a further four hours over and above a two-hour delay due to a tug not being readily available. In Valcic’s estimation the terminal does not need more berths but requires more trailers and additional modern gantry cranes, and more than six to replace the outdated units currently in use. “This will help alleviate the difficult conditions under which gantry operators currently work, which include no windproof cabin windows,” said Valcic, a qualified master mariner who heads up MOL’s tonnage centre in Abidjan. Schuitmaker told FTW: “We are very concerned because few of the measures we identified, including additional reefer plug points and hard surfacing for example, have been implemented, and the coming six months are traditionally a very busy period particularly for exports.”