Water-side delays at the Port of Cape Town, after five days of windbound disruption, could take two weeks to clear – “weather permitting.”
This was revealed by a private-sector organisation that had received correspondence to that effect from Transnet Port Terminals (TPT).
In the letter leaked to Freight News, acting senior planning manager for Cape Town Container Terminals (CTCT), Lubabalo Kenana, said: “The recovery of clearing the anchorage will be tentatively completed by 6 March.”
According to Kenana, the number of ships waiting to berth and those at outer anchorage had been reduced from 12 to 10 (please see earlier post: “Transnet boosts resources at CTCT”).
Kenana said: “The CTCT is currently operational. We are working towards clearing the backlog caused by recent gusty winds and windbound conditions.”
He said that by Wednesday morning, “we successfully berthed one vessel, bringing the number of vessels at anchorage to 10.”
Kenana described the port’s recovery as “making steady progress.”
He added that by 20 February “we will have two vessel changeovers at berths 602 and 601, further reducing the vessels at anchorage.”
A freight industry executive who Freight News spoke to earlier this week said that although it’s admirable that TPT is taking the necessary steps to recover from bad weather events, it’s not enough.
“We’ve always had wind and used to recover from gale-force stoppages a lot faster. Cape Town used to set the standard for bouncing back from heavy wind,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It’s not the first time a freight executive has said the port was once much better prepared to withstand and recover from bad weather.
A former director at the South African Association of Freight Forwarders, the late Mike Walwyn, liked to sum up the port’s woes by referring to it as a “PPE problem – productivity, personnel and equipment.”
According to Western Cape Region managing executive Oscar Borchards, the port at present can’t run an eight-gang shift.
He dispelled suggestions that not enough is being done to recover quickly from the recent winds exceeding 100 km/h.
He said all available personnel, including people called back from leave, are being deployed to clear the backlog.
