THERE'S AN attitude of co-operation at Portnet, as the container liner companies battle to get increased port productivity to justify the port authorities' annual tariff hikes.
That's the report to FTW from Brett Gray, Safmarine executive and spokesman for the Container Liner Forum after its latest meeting with Portnet to discuss the issue.
In our dealings with Portnet senior management over the last year, he said, there has been a significant improvement in their co-operative attitude.
They now want to find practical solutions for the port problems.
Other shipping sources suggest that this co-operative attitude in terms of the line/Portnet discussions could be a revival of the previously discussed service agreements between the port authorities and their users.
While only speculation, it is felt that Portnet may be looking at offering a guaranteed turnaround time-window for vessels at the container quays - with some form of tariff rebate allowed in the case of overstay.
The sort of timespan that would be acceptable to lines would appear to be about 12 hours for the larger container carriers.
At the same time, lines would seem to have no objection to paying a penalty if their own ship scheduling in any way disrupted the time-window allowed.
Copyright Now Media (Pty) Ltd
No article may be reproduced without the written permission of the editor
To respond to this article send your email to joyo@nowmedia.co.za
