Barcelona trawls in transhipment business in defiance of nearby competing terminals
'. . . transhipment boxes generate less revenue per move than import-export boxes' CHARLES BAKER
Barcelona-based Tercat moved 1m teu last year, of which around 42% was in the form of transhipped boxes. However, the terminal was never built with transhipment in mind. In fact, according to terminal manager Josep Ollés, the percentage of boxes rotated in and out by sea is a comparatively recent phenomenon, having accounted for just 6% of the total business just three years ago. The main transhipment client is Mediterranean Shipping Company whose throughput at Tercat has not fallen away despite the fact the company now manages its own dedicated terminal in the port of Valencia.
With growth of 43% reported last year,commercial importdirector Charles Baker concedes that he is not seeking to attract further clients in the near future, since projected growth from existing customers will take up any remaining space the company has at its existing site.
However, last year, Tercat in partnership with HPH was awarded the concession to manage an entirely new facility on El Prat quay.Mr Baker believes that once fully operational,Tercat will again be able to target new customers, several of whom may find Barcelona an attractive location to tranship containers, especially given strong, local import-export traffic.
El Prat terminal, which will cover an area of 930,000 sq m, will be protected by new outer quay dock walls. Capacity will be in the region of 2.6m-3m teu, while the 16 metre draught will ensure that very large vessels will be able to dock there,making Tercat especially suitable for transhipment operations.
A battery of "gooseneck"quayside gantry cranes will be serviced by a fleet of manually operated shuttle carriers, while the yard is to be equipped with automated rail mounted gantries. "RMGs are very good at high stacking densities and will allow us to do a lot of internal management of the blocks for a very low cost.
This is important given the high percentage of transhipment boxes we handle here; these generate less revenue per move than do import-export boxes, so we have to be very aware of the cost base,"says Mr Baker.He adds that this will allow employees to be redeployed to provide a better shuttle service between quay and yard, thereby boosting average productivity from today's highly credible 26-28 moves per hour in a crowded terminal towards the mid-thirties at the new facility. It is this quayside productivity that will be key in attracting both import-export traffic and transhipment.
Indeed, Mr Baker is convinced that Barcelona can function as an effective hub port in the Western Mediterranean. He points to the fact that rival operator TCB is already receiving calls from 9,600 teu ships operated by China Shipping, which only calls at Barcelona in the Mediterranean. With more of this size of vessel bound to follow, it makes sense to use Tercat's new terminal to rotate boxes out by sea to Southern France,Northern Italy,North Africa and Southern Spain, not to mention by rail to Madrid, Toulouse and Lyon once new high speed rail lines free up space on conventional lines and enable standard gauge crossborder trains to be operated into France.
"By making Barcelona the first and only call in the Mediterranean, which means leaving out Marseilles and Valencia, a shipping line could effectively reduce the number of vessels it deploys on a Mediterranean-Far East service by two units," claims Mr Baker, adding that existing calls at Tercat, even today, can generate up to 3,500 moves on some vessels.
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