Projected growth far outstrips global container terminal expansion

JOY ORLEK
SOUTH AFRICA is not alone in its battle to keep pace with growing container volumes against a backdrop of under-investment in infrastructure. It’s a global problem, says Captain Dave Rennie, SA Container Terminal advisory board co-chairman, who addressed a Sapo business networking breakfast in Johannesburg last week. According to Rennie there are close to 600 container ports around the world with a combined handling capacity in excess of 400million TEUs. In 2010 Shanghai’s container throughput is expected to surpass that of Hong Kong which is currently the largest container port in the world. By 2020 Shanghai is expected to be overtaken by Shenzhen and become the world’s largest container port. And in 2020 Shanghai and Shenzhen are expected to be handling 56m and 58m TEUs per annum respectively. He points out that a Drewry survey in 2005 forecast that world container trade in 2006 would grow by 9.7%, tapering off to 7%. In terms of container throughput, the estimated 400 m TEUs handled in 2005 will increase to 432m TEUs in 2006 and 703m handled by container terminals around the world by 2014. “However, the alarming reality is that investment in container terminal expansion between 2002 and 2008 reflects annual growth of only 4%.” While the obvious solution is to build new container terminals, environmental. constraints mean that it’s taking longer and becoming more difficult to build new ports. All of which adds up to severe capacity constraints worldwide in the years ahead.