The Port of Durban is wise to invest in its overall infrastructure because up the coast the Port of Maputo will be giving Durban a run for its money in five to ten years’ time, predicts Ian Hall, general manager/MD of DP World Cargo Services. “There are quite a number of expansions at Maputo going forward and to stay competitive Durban needs to get productivity levels up to the same levels as the larger terminal operators. At Durban they are doing 18-25 moves an hour. They should be up to 35-40,” said Hall. Acknowledging that the Durban port, where DPWCS moves up to 30 000 containers per month, has spent considerable sums upgrading its facilities, Hall said operational improvements had yet to be sustained on a regular basis. Certain benchmarks must be reached to provide pay-off for the investment, in the opinion of stevedore operations like DP World Cargo Services. “Definitely they’ve invested a large amount of money in port infrastructure itself, and what we are looking for is an increase in productivity. Then there must be less congestion of trucks moving in and out of the port, and better productivity on the vessel side as well,” Hall said. Some speeds ultimately depend on the cargo moved. DPWCS works on the vessels, handling various shipping lines such as MACS Shipping’s liner requirements for instance, because ships’ crews are not permitted to handle cargo. In the stevedoring industry it is a Transnet requirement to be a licensed operator. DPWCS’s workers, using ships’ cranes, (Transnet operates the wharf side cranes) can load/discharge all types of project, break-bulk and bulk cargo. Of the five regional ports where DP World Cargo Services operates, Durban is the busiest, and home to the company’s HQ.
