Shortage of landside storage space aggravates the problem
A SERIOUS lack of timing integrity by shipping lines, and a current shortage of landside storage space, are the two main problems bedevilling Portnet's container terminal in Durban.
That's the reply from the port authority to the complaint from ship owner/operators that Portnet seems to have an arbitrary attitude to changing original stack date timing after it took over the stack date responsibility from the lines last year.
Stack dates are allocated according to the berthing of vessels, and not according to the arrival information given by the lines - as this is extremely inaccurate, FTW was told by an anonymous, but senior, voice at the Port of Durban.
And, he added, actual arrivals are often out by an average of 42 hours over what the lines tell Portnet seven days prior to the vessel's arrival. That's the main driver of changed stack dates, said the Portnet spokesman, not any impetuous urge for change in the Portnet camp. What this would mean - if the lines were still setting their own stack dates - would be containers remaining in the terminal for an additional 42 hours, he added.
And that exacerbates the container jam in the terminal stacking area - a capacity for 650 000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) a year, currently handling them at the million-a-year mark.
Our spokesman suggested that he's not having lines littering up his back yard with boxes waiting for their boat. The terminal's a transit facility, not a storage depot, he said.
And decreasing dwell time is going to remain the order-of-the-day until the new stacking facilities are created. The project currently being conducted on Berths 108/109 is due to finish early next year. And this additional facility - along with the new, Cosmos, terminal operating system being installed this year in May - may allow Portnet to relax the strict stack opening-and-closing times in the future, our contact told FTW.
But this is going to have to be added to by a substantial improvement in the information supplied by the lines, the spokesman added.
Accuracy of both arrival times and discharge/loading volumes are paramount in creating a fluid berth and stack plan, he said, and achieving a maximum throughput with existing facilities.
Over the past year, the information on expected arrival times and container volumes given by the shipping lines has been measured during three projects - and has proven to be extremely inaccurate.
BY ALAN PEAT
