A game of two halves
In one sense, operations in southern Europe can be seen as a game of two halves, as those ports with captive customers and feeder and ro-ro links to Africa are doing better than those reliant on Asian trade lanes and hinterland industries explains BMTs Eleanor Hadland.
One such joint venture is Algeciras’ South Korean Total Terminal International (TTI).
The £44.5m ($81.5m) development is the first of its kind by an Asian shipping line in Spain. The facility, with 1,200 metres of quayside and handling of vessels of up to 10,000 teu, has been opened by Hanjin Shipping as a pad to launch a trade offensive into Africa as well as Europe.
Even so, cheap competition is close enough to keep things uneasy. Tangier is attracting traffic from Western Mediterranean ports, and recently both TTI and Maersk threw a spanner in the works with threats to switch to Tangier. While TTI seems to have settled down, Maersk Line took 500,000 teu – or around one sixth or its yearly throughput – away from APM Terminals Algeciras (which belongs to the Danish group too) giving it to its operation in APM Terminals Tangier. No coincidence that the Moroccan port has high productivity, lower costs and zero deviation for vessels.
Although the company explained that Maersk’s relationship with APM Terminals at Algeciras was as a customer, the shipping line’s change underlined the rule of the market.
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