In May, Hutchison Ports (UK) announced the start of work on its Felixstowe South Reconfiguration. The first 440 metres of quay are scheduled to be available by April 2010; the entire first phase, providing 730 metres of deepwater quay with depth of 16 metres alongside and equipped with seven ship-to-shore cranes, should be operational by September that year. 

By 2014, phase two should be operational, bringing the total length of quay to 1,285 metres, to provide four deepwater berths equipped with 13 cranes, increasing Felixstowe’s overall annual capacity to 5.3m teu.

In the same week as HPUK’s announcement, the British government gave the final seal of approval to DP World’s London Gateway container port and here, construction work will get under way later this year. This development, incorporating what is flagged up as Europe’s largest logistics park, will take place on a 1,850 acre site 25 miles from central London. DPW says it will be investing £1.5bn in the project over the next ten to 15 years.

As work started at Felixstowe, HPUK chief executive Chris Lewis re-emphasised the shortage of deepwater container terminal capacity in the UK and the port’s role in meeting this shortfall. Meeting growing demand is a common theme across the world’s port sector.

“The global container trade is growing on average 10% a year and this demand places pressure on port infrastructure in a classical supply vs demand case,” says Tom Boyd, corporate communications director for APM Terminals.  “As a global operator, we constantly study world markets for port opportunities.”

“The main challenge is that the growth of the global container trade is outpacing port capacity. To address this, we are investing. Last year we invested $850m in new ports and upgrades to existing ports. We are also focusing on productivity gains and research and technology to address the future challenges.”

Mr Boyd refers to a Wall Street Journal article in May which stated that about $1tr is needed to build and update global infrastructure – airports, roads, harbours, water supply, etc – over the next five years.

A spokesperson for DP World adds: “The challenges we face are the same that all those involved in transportation are confronting – principally the volume of goods flowing through the supply chain and ensuring the right resources are available in the right places to meet those demands.

“We work with our customers and/or business partners to make sure we have capacity when and where it’s needed. The result of that is our highly diversified and globally balanced portfolio.”

The London Gateway approval was certainly one of DP World’s most significant “wins” of the past 12 months but it is one of 13 new developments and ten expansion projects DP World is committed to globally, the spokesperson says. “We will expand our capacity globally from around 48m teu as of 2007 to around 90m teu in 2017.  We expect around 20m of that will be operational by the end of 2010.”

During 2007, DP World started operations at the first phase of its expansion at Jebel Ali, its flagship terminal, and at the latest expansion project at Qingwan Container Terminal. Together, these added 4m teu of gross capacity to the operator’s portfolio. 

DP World sees enormous potential in Africa, where it is pursuing the PPP (private-public partnership) model. “This has been highly successful in Djibouti, where we have operated the port for the past seven years, and where we are building a new terminal in partnership with the Djibouti government,” says DP World's spokesperson. “We are reinvesting our profit to grow the business. We are using the same model in Senegal, where we now operate the port in Dakar, and are building a new port.”

However, DP is not just looking at Africa – it sees potential in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East as well, and also sees considerable opportunities for growth in established markets such as Europe and Australia.