Running on empties

You don’t have to dig far into the details of empty depots to find out a basic truth – simple storage doesn’t pay.

“The problem is that generally, for a 40-foot empty container, 80p a day is the maximum you are going to get for storage,” says Chris Lawrenson, managing director of Pentalver Transport. “You pay more to park your car in a town centre car park for two hours than you will pay for storing a 40-foot empty container for 24 hours. We must look to the ancillary services to support the operation as a whole – and that is how Pentalver has always operated. Being able just to store containers is no longer enough.”

The company offers a complete range of services within its depots at Felixstowe, Southampton and Tilbury, including dry container and reefer repair, 24-hour service, loaded and empty lifting, cargo handling, container sales and transport. In addition, it has recently added a nationwide coverage of refrigerated container engineers which support its own depots and some third party depots.

Operating a total 77 acres across its three sites, Pentalver stores containers for most of the major shipping lines operating into the UK. Being located at the ports the customers use is very important, says Mr Lawrenson – but, of course, the land costs are higher for such locations.

“Location is a primary consideration when planning any depot operation – you have to be easily accessible to port operations or major trunk networks. The speed of operation is paramount in order to service the haulage companies and the shipping lines and make best use of the facilities due to high land costs.”

Jan van Beemen, terminal planner and senior port consultant at Royal Haskoning in the Netherlands, agrees that additional services are essential for profitable operation of empty depots, including inspection, cleaning, repair and pre-tripping of reefer boxes (starting, checking and bringing the box to the required temperature before it goes to the shipper).

“When providing storage plus these services, the combination can be offered against a lower price than if these activities were taking place at different locations,” he says.

According to Mr van Beemen, the industry is seeing more and more empty depots developing deep in the hinterland, close to receivers and shippers, a trend which reduces transport of the empty and is therefore greener.

“In the past, empty depots were mostly part of marine terminals. Later they became separate enterprises, operating outside the marine terminals, but still in the ports. This has much to do with less influence of labour unions outside the marine terminals.”

Now, in addition to the port-located depots, there are more empty depots opening far away from sea ports, close to receivers and shippers, mostly for logistic reasons, he says.

“This development has also to do with the willingness of shipping lines to delegate control over their boxes to third parties. The empty depot industry has become more mature and is increasingly regarded as a reliable partner of the shipping lines in managing their empties in places which are out of sight.”

In some parts of the world, where there is no mature empty depot industry, shipping lines will actually require that containers do not actually leave the port, he adds. “Containers are then stripped in the port and the goods may travel uncontainerised for hundreds of miles, resulting in damage and pilfering.”

Meanwhile, Pentalver has been stepping up the container sales side of its business in response to demand – not just for storage but also for use as mobile classrooms, offices, pumping stations, stables and even air-conditioned laboratories.

The company is even in discussion with Southampton University about the possibility of converting and locking together newbuild containers to provide cheap student accommodation.

“We do a lot of work in container sales for general storage and we are taking it one step further, moving into the container conversion market,” says the company’s Chris Lawrenson. “Containers that have come to the end of their shipping life after about ten years can be reconditioned and kitted out for almost anything and probably have another ten to 15 years of life.”

Pentalver’s own offices in Southampton are made out of four 40-ft high-cube containers.