Limited port infrastructure and shallow draught ports remain two of the biggest challenges facing the breakbulk sector.Marc Willim, general manager, chartering, A AL Shipping, said shortages of labour, machinery and trucks often further compounded the problem. “Weather conditions can also cause slow port productivity, which results in congestion, while the political/safety situations create uncertainty over whether planned projects will go ahead,” he said. “Blank sailings to and from Africa impact the freight rates, but also frequencies in terms of possibilities. This then causes further complications and delays into future sailings for customers.”He said to mitigate this, A A L’s c h a r t e r i n g and commercial teams worked closely with local shippers and the wider industrial project stakeholder community to build longer lead times and to plan their cargo movements earlier. “This gives carriers more time to plan their sailings and combine cargoes – ultimately offering greater economies of scale and dependability to those shippers involved,” he told Freight News. “In addition, A AL is deep-diving into the economics of the region and liaising with local project stakeholders, forwarders, and commodities traders to forecast more accurately the potential forward cargo volumes, and to better plan sailings and service market demand.”He said the shipping line had seen a very strong first half of 2022. “All major trade lanes served ex-Asia to North America, to Europe and to Australia have been creating steady volumes of project and breakbulk cargoes as well as wind energy components. Another driving factor has been the overf low of commodities traditionally carried in Shipper-Owned Containers (SOC).”While wind projects are picking up on the continent, Africa is still lagging in terms of these renewable projects when compared to other markets. “It also lacks the necessary major infrastructure and oil and gas projects. We’re also seeing a slowdown of transport into Africa owing to a bigger-than-normal yield difference.”The outlook for the continent is, however, quite positive with activity expected to pick up significantly from around mid-2023 in Mozambique when the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) cargo volumes start to ramp up.“Projects with iron, steel, transformers, miscellaneous outsized equipment, and ro-ro have always been the classic movements from India and Asia into Africa. However, nowadays, raw material such as gypsum and cement are seeing more and more tradelines from Mediterranean and Black Sea routes, as well as a small portion directly from Europe, into Africa,” said Willim. “Businesses that specialise in construction and metallurgy, the food industry (including cocoa, grains, wheat, rice, etc), and raw materials including minerals, rubber, manganese, and so on have a bright future ahead of them across Africa.”He said while they were continuing to see project development across Africa there were still better return cargo opportunities for breakbulk and project cargo operations on the continent. “The more projects that take off will justify an increased number of sailings to Africa.”But, he said, at this stage they did not foresee any major project or breakbulk activities. “For the next two years, apart from the Mozambique LNG Project, operated by TotalEnergies, which is on track to deliver LNG in 2024, we don’t see any major projects taking off. Some larger developments are in Front End Engineering Design studies at the moment, but once approved, these will likely only start developing from 2026 onwards.”Willim said although project and heavy-lift cargo to and from Africa remained low compared with other global routes, A AL estimated that with the region’s economic fundamental freight demand, the African market would grow. “It is important to note that many African economies are growing at faster rates than elsewhere around the world and the development of necessary infrastructure and power projects across the continent have been gaining momentum in recent years,” he said. “Despite a current lack of ready project cargo volumes out there, there is still great potential in the region and A AL plans to build its presence here carefully and sustainably. It will be interesting to see how the demand for services into ports that are not traditionally serviced by shipping routes along the African coast and around the Cape in both directions, changes over the next five to ten years.”
