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.