Alan Peat ALTHOUGH THE productivity levels at the Durban container terminal (DCT) have improved “immensely” over last year, the average ship delays are still way above the rate imposed by the lines for the removal of the port congestion surcharge, according to Dave Rennie, CE of Unifeeder and chairman of the Container Liner Operators Forum (Clof). “My understanding of the formula is that it requires a 28-day (was originally two months) moving average of below 16-hours,” he told FTW. “But the current figure is still over 37hrs - well over double that critical level.” Also, at time of writing, SA Port Operations (Sapo) had just announced that the average delay in Durban for the following seven days was expected to be 35hrs - with a maximum delay of about 80hrs. But the DCT productivity level has improved, Rennie added, with the gantry cranes now reporting an average handling speed of over 16 containers per hour. “Overall,” he said, “they have certainly reduced the delays, and this with much higher volumes of cargo than last year - with Sapo recording 100 000 container moves last month (September), a record figure.” At the moment, Rennie added, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town are still both below that 16-hr average delay - describing PE’s performance as “relatively fluid” and the port of Cape Town “reasonable”. “But,” he said, “we are coming into the peak fruit season over the next couple of months, and we will have to see how that goes - a particular concern at Cape Town harbour.” From Durban’s point-of-view, a major factor in improving the DCT performance will be the expected arrival over the next year of additional ship-to-shore cranes for the container berths. “These,” he said, “will make all the difference.”
