Anew report from Dynamar, The Netherlands based shipping, information and consultancy group, defines and analyses global container vessel feeder activity in an immensely informative way.<\/p>\n
The report, which takes its name from the three main sections of the near 150pp study, “Feedering, Trades and Top Operators, ” provides a definitive focus on an industry sector that has hitherto been very hard to sum up. Indeed, it is perhaps with this in mind that the first section of the report pays significant attention to defining the activity of feedering, which it states is:<\/p>\n
“The first and\/or last maritime leg of an oceanborne container transport where the ports of loading and discharge of the mainline containership are not the same as the origin or ultimate destination port of the container.<\/p>\n
“The regional part of the global container transport system, and as such an integrated part of the transport chain from house-to-house.<\/p>\n
“A shortsea trade and a product of transhipment. The principal of the feeder operator is the mainline carrier, not the cargo interests.”<\/p>\n
It further makes clear that in container shipping operations transhipment does not automatically involve feedering and that taking this into account the relay, interlining and transit activities associated with transhipment do not fall within the focus of the report.<\/p>\n
Primarily, it is feedering carried out by independent carriers, the common or third party feeder operators and the mainline carriers themselves with dedicated feeders that the study examines. And interestingly, Dynamar underlines that a major consideration in taking this focus was recognition of the general lack of interest on the part of the port industry in feedering and the resultant struggle for survival of the feeder operators, which exhibits an above average flexibility.<\/p>\n
While it is recommended to readers that the whole of this report is worthy of a read if their respective company activities are in any way influenced by feeder operations, with limited space available here it is the port role in feedering activity that provides the primary focus for our review. Indeed, we take this approach not only recognising the main area of interest for our readership but also in agreement with Dynamar’s view that while there have been exceptions to the rule, the port industry generally appears not to have given enough respect to the feeder sector – a sector which, according to Dynamar, carries around 37mTEUs annually on vessels of up to 1,000TEU carrying capacity.<\/p>\n
FEEDERING: SECTION ONE Dynamar spells out the key hub port selection criteria as a combination of the following:<\/p>\n
– A substantial hinterland with good intermodal connections – road, rail, barge.<\/p>\n
– Vicinity to the main feeder catchment areas and frequent feeder connections.<\/p>\n
– A good geographical location in terms of proximity to main trade routes.<\/p>\n
– Easy approach from the open sea through a deep draught fairway.<\/p>\n
– Ample berthing facilities and equipment.<\/p>\n
– High terminal performance coupled with low handling costs.<\/p>\n
– 24 hour operations, seven days a week.<\/p>\n
– Where multi-port calls apply within a relatively short port range for mainline carriers, as in northern Europe, import feedering from the first port of call and export feedering on the last port of call.<\/p>\n
The report further amplifies the point, however, that within this menu “feedering is generally a low interest activity” and that the mainline ship “stands in the spotlight” for most port operators. It emphasises such an approach is a mistake as there are “three very valid reasons for a port operator to take an interest in transhipment, ” namely:<\/p>\n
Feedering should be seen as an integral part of a network that needs to be protected.<\/p>\n
Efficient feeder links act as a catalyst to the growth of containerisation and hence play an important part in growing business volume.<\/p>\n
Transhipment cargo in addition to hinterland cargo is attractive to mainline carriers and hence promotes port use overall.<\/p>\n
And, in Dynamar’s view, where pure transhipment ports are concerned, it is even more of a mistake not attaching enough importance to these three factors – a point that certainly seems to be proven in relation to the past experience of ports such as Cagliari in Sardinia and perhaps even now with Sines in Portugal.<\/p>\n
Yet Dynamar makes the point that still reports continue to persist of hubs effectively treating feeder operators as poor relations, particularly when terminal capacity becomes tight or congestion problems loom. To some extent, it feels the blame for this can be laid at the Free In and Out contractual arrangements made with feeder operators under which mainline carriers pay for the loading and discharge of feeder vessels at hub ports. This arrangement, it suggests, promotes the culture of the mainline operator being the dominant customer.<\/p>\n
As regards to how the world’s container feeder industry stands in readiness to cope with the scaling up in size of mainline container vessels, Dynamar concludes in its Feedering section that “?no direct impact on feedering patterns is to be expected in the short-term from the current scaling-up of mainline container ships up to the 9,200TEU size.” It stresses that, “Up to now, ports have continuously adapted to the next challenge of ship size.” And notes:<\/p>\n
“The service slings on which the present large box ships of up to 8,200TEU are trading already have persisted in scheduling eight to twelve direct ports per trip. Almost 40 ports on the EuropeMediterranean-Middle East-Far East-North America West Coast trade lanes are basically ready or will soon be ready to handle vessels of up to 10,000TEUs.”<\/p>\n
It believes that the major challenge will come for the feeder industry from the cascade of smaller vessels to new East-West trade routes and that an advance to a really large-scale hub and spoke concept will only emerge once 10,000 to 12,500TEU vessels are introduced offering 20+ wide container carrying capacities on-deck.<\/p>\n
TRADES: SECTION TWO The second section of the study, Trades, is very informative basically offering a detailed view of feedering activity in every major area of the world on a region by region basis.<\/p>\n
In conjunction with each region, an overview, analysis of feeder ship size and speed, port commentaries and other key regional data such as transhipment-driven port projects, are presented as well as selective analyses on the future of feedering operations in certain areas.<\/p>\n
Useful tables are presented throughout the various geographical areas examined which include: Europe, The Mediterranean, Middle East, Indian Sub-Continent, South East Asia, North East Asia, Australasia, North America, Latin America and Africa. In the large Europe section for example, tables are provided that present data on port traffic and percentage of transhipment traffic, transhipment-driven port projects, mainport statistics, ports of call for dedicated and common user feeders in Scandinavia and the Eastern Baltic countries and in the UK\/Ireland and around the Iberian Peninsula.<\/p>\n
OPERATORS: SECTION THREE The third and final section of the Dynamar report looks at the operators engaged in feeder activities.<\/p>\n
It identifies, as of mid-2004, over 30 companies operating 468 vessels with a total carrying capacity of 290,400TEUs (data source:<\/p>\n
BRS\/Alphaliner).<\/p>\n
It also identifies some eighteen shipping companies predominantly offering feeder services that feature in the Top 100 ranking of liner operators by nominal TEU. This latter information, presented in a tabular format, together with other tables showing the carryings of specific operators and identifying the Top 5 Feeder Operators, is followed by over 30 individual profiles of specific operators, large and small.<\/p>\n
MUCH OF INTEREST Overall, the new Dynamar study, Feedering, Trades and Top Operators, offers much of importance to all those having an interest in container feedering activity. For a port readership, it has a significant educational element and raises some interesting thoughts on how to interact with the sector in order to get the best out of it. As far as Port Strategy is concerned it is essential reading at a very reasonable price and delivers both an overview and detailed information regarding the feeder industry that has not previously been featured in one, easy-to-read, definitive study.<\/p>\n
Feedering, Trades and Top Operators is available at ?295 per copy in pdf format and ?315 per copy in the printed version. Copies can be obtained from: Dynamar B.V. , Noorderkade 2c, 1823 CJ Alkmaar, The Netherlands Tel: +31 72 514 74 00 Fax: +31 72 515 13 97 Email:<\/p>\n
info@dynamar. com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A study just published on the global container feeder industry offers some interesting views and data to port readers, not the least of which is that it is a big mistake to treat the sector as a poor relation. Mike Mundy takes a look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-2503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equipment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}