Durban desperately awaits new straddle carriers

9 Feb 2001 - By Staff reporter

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September delivery or there's
trouble ahead, says Kingwill

Ray Smuts

THE REACHING of capacity in the Port of Durban has to be the biggest challenge in the year ahead and this means more equipment and aligning the physical environment with increasing volumes, says Ronnie Kingwill, Portnet's general manager : containers.
The recently announced expansion plan for Durban is long overdue, says Kingwill, who is keenly awaiting execution of the first phase of a R280 million order for 61 replacement and 19 new straddle carriers, all destined for this port.
This equipment, Kingwill told FTW, would enable the port to handle 26 moves per crane hour 'quite easily' - it is currently handling around 18 moves - but he added: If we don't get first delivery by September Durban is going to find itself in trouble.
In Cape Town, which showed an improvement of 16 to 19 moves per crane hour over November, December and January, there was no need to replace existing straddle carriers (about 23), but reefer stack development called for the provision of four-high straddle carriers at a combined cost of around R32 million. These would however not become available this year.
Cape Town has reduced ship turnaround dramatically as a result of improved productivity on the cranes but more particularly a very deliberate policy of maximising the number of cranes and gangs allocated per vessel.
As to other priorities aside from Durban, Kingwill posed the question of finding flexible labour practices to enable Portnet to generate an improved bottom line for the ring-fenced terminals so that it could prepare itself on a sound financial basis for imminent concessioning.
We have to turn the business around and to do that is going to require major interface with labour in terms of flexibility and work practices. We cannot continue to have people sitting on the quayside during the week earning money and then charge double time over the weekend. (About 60% of Cape Town's containers are handled over weekends).