Southern African port competition intensifies

WILL THE ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam soon be in a position to challenge Durban’s ‘preferred’ status for regional cargo as foreign investors pour more and more funds into upgrades and expansion? It’s an idea mooted by several FTW sources, particularly in light of foreign funding (especially Chinese) being pumped into developments at the Kenyan and Tanzanian ports. But it’s a viewpoint that didn’t meet with much support from Andrew Thomas, CEO of Ocean Africa Container Line (OACL). His line has dropped both ports in the last two years, with Thomas citing changed trading patterns, port congestion at both centres and a need for schedule reliability as the reasons. “However,” he said, “if capacity is increased, cargo will certainly find its way there.” But this is not likely to be enough to worry SA ports too much. Cargo follows the line of least resistance, according to Thomas, and SA has a lot of long-established, and relatively efficient, transport tentacles reaching into Southern, Central and Eastern Africa. There are also other ports round the coast of Southern Africa which are more likely to provide competition with SA, according to another FTW source, and which will also be trying to attract cargo from the same region as Mombasa and Dar. “Mozambique ports are also able to serve the same region, and in Maputo, for example, there has been a lot of investment.” A lot of corridor cargo is moving through Beira – from Zimbabwe, Malawi and even Zambia. And the channel in the port is due to be dredged, a move which will increase its attraction. “Nacala is obviously the natural deep-water port,” said Thomas, “and it is essentially the biggest port on that part of the East Coast. “But inland connectivity is a problem, and it needs to get that proposed new railway line into the interior going.” You can add to that the ports of Walvis Bay and Luderitz in Namibia. “They are both also being developed, and are also offering to service the inland region,” said Thomas. Even Angola sets up a squeaky challenge. “The Angolan ports can also handle regional cargo, but they’re utterly congested,” said Thomas. He did, however, reckon that the takeover of the operation of Luanda’s container terminal last year by Sogester – a jointventure between APM Terminals and Angolanbased Gestao de Fundos – had made a difference there. Meantime, significant investments have been made in port development in Mozambique, SA and Namibia. Where you have congestion you have a lack of capacity, according to Thomas, and Mombasa and Dar es Salaam need to grow capacity – which depends on financial support. “That’s the key, and investment in assets is very important,” he added.