War risk premiums

No-one wants political instability or outright war on their doorstep – but while ports might feel the heat, it can also make for some interesting times for nearby facilities.

“There can be a number of ways in which war risk pays off,” says David Wignall of Wignall Associates: “For example, the Port Authority of Cyprus has seen an improvement in business: it’s simply because Cyprus looks over at Syria, Israel, Turkey and Egypt and if you have nine or 10 navies sitting off your coast, they need somewhere to call – in this case it’s Limassol.”

Not too far away is Ashdod in Israel, and it’s uneasy geopolitical history has lent itself to a rather odd advantage: the port has invested heavily in “good security” explains Mr Wignall. “It’s taking cargo – Egyptian cargo – from Egypt’s own port because while APMT is doing well in the circumstances many shippers are happier calling at Ashdod than in unsettled Alexandria. There, the local lines of authority are still confused and it’s not even clear who is being paid by whom. But it’s a truly bizarre outcome if you stop to think about it.”

Still, predicting how the demand will shape up isn’t always easy. After all, in Ukraine the ‘fear factor’ reaches a lot further than the hotspots so Odessa and Illichivsk are having a harder time than is strictly warranted, explains Steve Wray of Ocean Shipping Consultants/RHDHV. Constanta, comfortingly distant from the troubles on the other side of the Black Sea, has seen a modest boost but it is not going to benefit hugely from rerouted cargo.

Transit volumes through Gdansk have pitifully weakened as sanctions and insecurity have taken their toll and inward draw has nosedived along with the GDP: “Some people in the Ukraine are earning not even a tenth of what they did just a couple of years ago,” he says.

Green shoots

However, some strife-ridden regions may still be capable of sucking in cargo. Although basing itself on something very solid in the way of steel products for local manufacturers, a new greenfield port called Erzin, near Adana in Turkey, also aims at getting the best out of a substantial throughput for the troubled hotspots of Iran, Iraq and Syria, says Mr Wray.

“It’s a struggle to get the details, but it seems there’s what I’d say was a ‘reasonable’ amount of cargo coming through those southeast Turkish ports on its way to Iran, Iraq and Syria; we know nearby Mersin, for example, has already been seeing some of this throughput. I’d say if you take it all together it’s an interestingly large area to be serving, even if it’s got issues.”

Erzin, a multipurpose facility that aims to be twice the size of Iskenderun, already has a good water depth and is pushing for even deeper water with dredging to take it down from 14m to 17m. So it will be in the right position to act as a gateway for cargo from Asia which will then go on to transit overland.

“Of course, getting cargo into Aleppo or Damascus, two of the main cargo destinations, is going to make people wary as the ‘last mile’ could be the most expensive and the most dangerous,” says Mr Wray “and there will be a balance with costs.”

Reaching right into a hotspot is going to be difficult but despite falling demand for luxury items, populations virtually cut off from established trade routes still have substantial needs. Containers, of course, are the easiest to handle in these circumstances as there is a lower chance of the cargo magically disappearing.

Mr Wignall comments: “Huge premiums are paid for trucking through routes that start off tolerably well and then descend into areas that could be described as hell. So, it’s expensive, but there are still people who are willing to pay: the United Nations has an interest in humanitarian aid, and on top of this the US – in fact anyone who has armed forces in a region – will rise to the cost of getting trucks in.”

Outside help

Somalia is another country presently reliant on external ports, particularly Djibouti and Mombasa even though the country has a well-kept facility of its own. This isn’t Somalia’s main port, “as though Turkish players have been doing creditable job of trying to reopen Mogadishu, it’s been four steps forward and three steps back as gunfire and bombs are still a reality”, says Mr Wignall. However Berbera, up in the Somaliland region, is a very different proposition.

Mr Wignall explains that while the rump of Somalia in the south “is still in a bad way”, the central zone of Puntland is a semi-viable destination with some inward draw for domestic cargo. “By contrast, Somaliland is still stable and safe enough for a family holiday,” he adds.

But both Somaliland and the port of Berbera have been tarred with the brush of being part of a war-torn country, and are suffering despite having benefited from a couple of attempts to raise the port’s profile, for example through a Chinese initiative to transit oil cargo.

However, does it do much good in the long term? The effect of the drawn-out Ivory Coast crisis meant Ghana benefited from the reorganisation of the traffic, and as Tema was saturated, Takoradi emerged to handle the huge volumes of cargo rerouted from Abidjan. But history shows peace agreements simply move transit traffic to its original path “and cargo routes usually spring back really very quickly”, says Mr Wignall, unless of course something changes the game such as an upgrade of the roads.

Returning to Ashdod, Mr Wignall doesn’t see Israel’s port picking up the cargo on a permanent basis “unless they convince people that the border is going to stay open, and show people they mean it”.

Helping hand

Despite this, that cargo, even if transitory, could possibly help developing ports get ports a leg up. Gagan Seksaria of ICTSI points out “all volume is good volume” no matter how short-lived and adds that transhipment is itself often transitory by nature. Given time, re-routed cargo could help to create land side infrastructure “where some of it might stick because this supply chain actually starts to work”.

So, the cargo may not simply evaporate with the problems. Mr Wray says: “Syria for example really only has the ports of Tartous and Latakia and it’s not a main line service but on a feeder rotation. So, cargo usually goes through the Levant area and takes some time to get there anyway.” He continues: “It’s all about keeping to the expected delivery slot now, rather than speed.” So if the road transit is working well enough and stays competitive – given it avoids the extra handling required by feeders – then there’s “a fair chance” non-perishable cargo will stay with the Turkish route he concludes.

And when a country starts to recover, there’s an awful lot of cargo that will be coming through to rebuild the housing and infrastructure, adds Mr Wray.