Looming over all proposals for combined strategies is government fear of a monopoly being established and competition stifled.<\/p>\n
That is of most concern in the US, where anti-trust suspicion is at the forefront of any government examination of requests for closer ties in the transport industry. Ports take delicate steps to avoid being accused, with Seattle and Tacoma the most advanced of those wanting to join forces. A joint agreement approved by the Federal Maritime Commission emphasises that the ports will take no \u201ccollective action\u201d and that the co-operation will be over rates, costs, terminal utilisation and related issues.<\/p>\n
In a research paper earlier this year, Mr Davidson focused on Seattle and Tacoma, which want to pool their information on rates of return, utilisation, costs and related matters. \u201cAs with other US West Coast ports, Seattle and Tacoma have to live with the legacy whereby each major carrier tended to have its own terminal. This made sense when carriers were smaller and more independent, but with today\u2019s mega carriers and alliances, the fragmentation of terminal capacity makes it harder to accommodate the growing needs of the likes of the P3, G6 and CKYH alliances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facts of life also take their toll \u2013 the tables with this article drawn up by Drewry show that Canada is eating into market share in the region, while Seattle and Tacoma are showing little or no growth and have to come up with a solution.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Credit: Drewry Shipping Consultants <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Profit second <\/strong><\/p>\n Independent consultant Christiaan van Krimpen points out that the profit motive in Europe is often secondary to other factors because many ports are under public ownership. \u201cIn Europe port authorities are often autonomous state or municipal enterprises. Making profit is not their main objective. They have to cover costs and create sufficient financial reserves to secure long-term investments in (port) infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cIndeed, a merger is a change in ownership as the port authority usually owns the port land, which has to be transferred to a new joint port authority. PPP applications such as BOT will probably become easier to apply as the port has more financial wherewithal and long term risks can be better managed. No doubt, a port merger will cause some job losses, mainly among non-operational personnel. \u201c<\/p>\n Gill Hicks, director of Southern California Operations at Cambridge Systematics, says a merger largely makes sense if the aim is to improve the competitive position and lower costs. \u201cIf it is merely driven by a desire to consolidate power into a single group, it may not work.\u201d<\/p>\n Whatever happens, he says, the ports must talk to their customers \u2013 \u201cthe ocean carriers, terminal operators and beneficial cargo owners. For anything important ask them if they want it.\u201d<\/p>\n He cites the example of on-dock rail in Southern California. \u201cThe ports didn\u2019t want to give up their valuable land for something like that, but the terminals wanted it. Now of course, just about every terminal wants it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Complications <\/strong> <\/p>\n Paul Bingham, economics practice leader at CDM Smith, says the situation can get complicated if the port authority is both a landlord and terminal operator.<\/p>\n \u201cPure landlord ports have to negotiate with essentially only the terminal operators while those ports that retain their own operations as terminal operators then have to take on the terminal management negotiating role with labour and terminal customers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe actual difference is a little less sharp,\u201d says Mr Bingham, \u201cbecause even landlord-only ports are pulled into terminal labour relations and the environmental performance of the terminal operators, even if not with legal obligations attached.<\/p>\n “That is because as public agencies, the port authorities end up having to bow to their political masters, not just shareholders as the private firms such as the terminal operating companies must.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mergers should be seen as a means to an end and not an end in themselves, writes Martin rushmere<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-3964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulk-handling"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964","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=3964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3966,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions\/3966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=3964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}