Durban delays stretch way beyond acceptable

CT figures even more dismal ALAN PEAT THE AVERAGE berthing delay in the Port of Durban has once again stretched out well past the 16-hours average the shipping line conferences set as the benchmark to remove the contentious port congestion surcharge. “Durban is not performing very well in our international port usage,” said an executive of the local agents for one of the major scheduled lines on the SA trade. His figures showed that his line recorded an 18.93-hrs average berthing delay for its ships at Durban in January. But the figure for February had pushed out to 31.83-hrs. As an aside, this line’s figures for Cape Town made even more dismal reading. The 19.5-hrs for January in the mother city port had rocketed out to 58-hrs in February. The negative situation in Durban wasn’t helped by the Transnet workers’ strikes, according to Dave Rennie, CE of Ocean Africa Container Lines and chairman of the Container Liner Operators’ Forum (Clof). The berthing delays on March 20 were running at between 24 and 72-hours, he told FTW. SA Port Operations (Sapo) daily figures for March 17 showed a similar tale. The average delay for the eight ships waiting to berth at the Durban container terminal (DCT) was 41.25-hrs. Admittedly, one ship with a 45-hr wait had been 44-hrs late itself, but the others were all running near enough to schedule. The worst wait was 74-hrs with two others in the 60s. Best was one ship with no wait.