Trading places
Big aspirations: Not every terminal needs to be built to accommodate the largest containerships
Halcrow's Richard Clarke says anyone can lay out a container terminal - but to get it right, you need to recognise and understand the trade that will be going through. Felicity Landon looks at the issues
Virtually every terminal we have worked with has asked us to design for what is then the biggest ship in the world - and it is only appropriate in a relatively small percentage of them," he says. "You have to understand the trade that is going to go through - where the ships are going to and coming from, how they are routed and the type of cargo.
"In Shanghai, for example, you are actually going to empty the ship completely and refill it. In Tusdeer (Jeddah) you may get a ship with 6,000 or 8,000 containers on it but you only actually take off about 1,500 and put the same back on again. If you are lucky they will also be pretty much in one place in the ship.
But if you are unlucky, they will be scattered throughout the whole thing.So the speed at which you can do the handling and the way you plan your operation is different. If you are a mid-run port like Tusdeer, it is a very different case to an end-of-run port like Shanghai."
Halcrow is involved in numerous container port projects around the world but by way of comparison, Mr Clarke, the group's market sector director for containers, gives two examples.
First, Halcrow is working on the design of the completely new Tusdeer terminal in Jeddah - this will be a big terminal for the biggest ships in the world. "Therefore it has all the stuff built into it to be automated in the future and to cover very rapid cargo handling."
At the other end of the scale, Halcrow has just been appointed to do the new masterplan for Port Louis in Mauritius - this is a smaller terminal that started out being operated by reachstackers and is now being converted to use rubber-tyred gantries to cope with the increase in throughput.
"Also, when the terminal was originally designed it was for import/export trade but as it has developed, a high per cent of trade has been transhipment, so the equipment needs and space needs are very different. What you do totally depends on the scale of what you are dealing with."
Having said that, it doesn't get much simpler than a terminal project Halcrow is working on in the Gulf - this is a facility that will be dedicated to exporting plastic granules, in containers. "All the boxes go out pretty much identical and the whole way of planning is totally different. None of the boxes will have hazardous contents, and there is no transhipment to consider."
All operators think they are going to get the biggest ships in the world, says Mr Clarke."But they should take a really realistic look at what trade they are going to get, and build around it."
He says matching the terminal to the trade, rather than designing for the biggest and fastest,makes clear financial sense."If you put in the kit for the big ships and then you don't get them and have to use that kit for smaller ships, your efficiency will be quite a lot lower than if you put in the smaller kit in the first place."
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