Durban depot running at full capacity

The Durban depot has its own special place in the hearts of the management at Nzenga Junction at the moment, according to Charles Olsen, GM for all the group’s container depots. Despite its depots at Johannesburg City Deep, Salt River and Ladysmith, and the warehouse/pack-unpack facility at Alrode all sharing in reduced volumes at this time of a global trade slowdown, the Durban Bayhead depot is working to full capacity. Its nominated maximum capacity is 7 500 TEUs. “And our records at the moment show we’re marginally up on that capacity,” said Olsen. “Last month our Bayhead depot even topped out at 9 000 TEUs. “But, while Durban is running at full or over-capacity, our other depots are registering about half-capacity.” The reason, he told FTW, is that shipping lines are hesitant to move boxes up to Johannesburg if they don’t need to – and transiting the Durban depot between cargoes is a preferable option. Olsen is not only pleased with the depot’s capacity figures – but pointed to Nzenga’s gate throughput which is also high, adding that the containers were moving, and not just standing.” In the past three months, Nzenga’s gate figures at Bayhead have been running at a daily average of 365 units. “That’s slightly lower on the normal daily throughput prior to the economic crisis, but it’s definitely picked up from the 100-150 boxes that were passing through the gates daily in the early part of this year,” said Olsen. Nzenga Junction is a national network of container depots, specialising in warehousing and empty container parks, with both road and rail access and crossborder movement.