It is authored by two well-known industry figures, Andrew Penfold former owner of Ocean Shipping Consultants and Remco Stenvert, a member of the senior management team of ECT Rotterdam, part of the Hutchison Group.
For the sake of good form, I also have to declare an interest in being involved in an editing role in the study’s publication.
There are two main inter-related areas of the study – the analysis of the new norm of container trade development and the charting of largely empirical approaches to investing in and achieving, sustaining and growing container terminal profitability, covering both existing and new assets.
As the introduction to the Study puts it: “The risks and uncertainties facing the container terminal sector are considered, with these varying from macro-economic risks and the
changing structure of box trade to the uncertainties stemming from development of the container shipping industry with its strained financial viability and its search for scale economies.”
High risk
“These external and internal factors,” the authors suggest, “make investing and developing in the container sector highly risky and underline the need for in-depth project evaluation.”
The client base of old is not the client base of today in the liner sector – the sector has seen far reaching consolidation and the rise of the mega-alliances.
These trend lines, it is contended, pose significant challenges for terminal operators in terms of seeking to achieve and maintain acceptable margins.
The cocktail of these new macro and micro forces – including the requirement for an increased focus on productivity, automation and the environment – is effectively driving an era of change.
This, in turn, promulgates the need to for more effective, targeted marketing and the application of new generation strategies for optimum pricing and profitability, adjusted according to the category of terminal: common-user; liner-owned, terminal and liner operator joint venture, etc. The study articulates these and provides case study examples.
Complementing this focus, the pros and cons of different terminal ownership models are assessed and the benefits that can flow from a full understanding of a client’s overall transportation cost chain.
Generally, all the main factors are identified and appraised that influence the basic choices a terminal has to make and consistently pursue to build a sustainable competitive market position.
The study effectively charts the fundamental changes underway in the container terminal sector and plots a path, under different scenarios, of how to ‘stay ahead of the game’ in a much more demanding business environment.
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