SAECS drops Durban as terminus port

Further strike action threatened Terry Hutson FOR THE first time in more than 20 years, the South Africa Europe Container Service (SAECS) has ruled out Durban as its terminus port and is turning at Port Elizabeth until further notice. Iain McIntosh, marketing manager for P&O Nedlloyd, told FTW that the decision to terminate the SAECS service at Port Elizabeth, with a feeder service running to Durban, had been taken with extreme reluctance. He said matters came to a head during December when five consecutive days of strike action cost shipping lines delays of up to 100 hours and more. The decision had been delayed until January because most of the SAECS fleet were being dry-docked in Durban. This programme was completed in late December with SA Helderberg. The first ship to be affected by the decision was Maersk Constantia, which was followed by SA Sederberg. However, McIntosh said the situation would be reviewed mid-month with the arrival of SA Winterberg and would then be looked at on a ship-by-ship basis for between one and three months. He said that it was critical that the integrity of the weekly service to Europe was maintained, as this was being jeopardised by ongoing delays. "It's important that we maintain the weekly Saturday departure from Cape Town, especially with the fruit season in full swing, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that things will continue to improve at Durban." SAECS has released the City of Stuttgart from its normal duties on the intermediate SAECS service and the ship is currently operating a transhipment shuttle service between Port Elizabeth and Durban. Ronnie Holtshausen, SA Port Operations' acting general manager of Containers, told FTW that SAPO was unaware of the development, adding that SAPO had heard rumours but nothing definite. He said that operations at the Durban container terminal had returned to normal, which was helped by the Durban Container Terminal working on Christmas and New Year's days. After January 1 ships were being berthed on arrival. A call to the shipping lines confirmed this, although it was pointed out that the number of ships that had been diverted or missed out calling at Durban altogether had assisted. There are now fresh storm clouds on the horizon however, with COSATU calling for a further two-day nationwide strike starting on January 14 as a protest against government privatisation plans.