In the business of port operations, there is always room for a better matching of big picture strategy with operational tactics: \u201cnot every port will be a super-hub”, points out Rick Ferrin, vice president at consultant TranSystems, in its Jacksonville office.<\/p>\n
While the world\u2019s top ports, mainly in the fast growing Asian marketplace, are blessed with bourgeoning hinterlands or enormous throughputs fueled by the unprecedented boom that began around 2002, a look at the approaches among the top ports is instructive for smaller ports hoping to gain a growth trajectory.<\/p>\n
Though Drewry\u2019s Neil Davidson, from the Port practice at Drewry Shipping, tells Port Strategy: \u201cThe lesson for smaller ports is that they don\u2019t have to be exactly like the big ports.\u201d As an example, he suggests: \u201cMaybe a port would use reachstackers rather than rubber-tyred gantry cranes.\u201d<\/p>\n
And location matters. The battle for box trades primacy has been cenre-stage, with the most attention focused on Shanghai\u2019s meteoric rise. Estimated movement data for 2011 showed Shanghai dominating box movements with 31.7m teu, compared with Singapore\u2019s 29.9m teu. Shanghai\u2019s widening margin is due, in part, to Shanghai\u2019s successes in capturing intra-Asian trans-shipment business.<\/p>\n
But Drewry’s Mr Davidson warns: \u201cOne size does not fit all. What\u2019s worked in one port may not have the same effect elsewhere. It depends really on a balance.\u201d In efforts to make Shanghai into a major international shipping center, Shanghai International Port Group has driven the port\u2019s growth, intertwining government – typically the catalyst in large infrastructure projects – with private strategic investors.<\/p>\n
Shanghai has also benefited greatly from China\u2019s planning that began in the late 1970s; its growth spurt during the 1990s positioned it well for the regional manufacturing and exporting boom in the next decade. Strategic investors who have come in include leading operators Cosco Pacific, HPH, and APM Terminals. But in the face of a wider Panama Canal – and blueprints for larger and deeper vessels – planners are now looking outward to the port\u2019s perimeter.<\/p>\n
Most symbolic of SIPG\u2019s outward-looking planning efforts is Yangshan Deepwater Port, built 50 km from the \u201cold\u201d port, on a group of islands beyond Shanghai\u2019s historical port limits, which opened in late 2005. With water depths of 15 metres, Yangshan can handle deep drafted vessels up to roughly 13,000 teu. Its location also supports efforts to capture transhipment business, becoming a \u201chub\u201d and processing port for coastwise Chinese cargoes. Included are those shuttled between the new port (with bonded areas in its logistics park) and the older terminals at Waigaoqiao.<\/p>\n
Yangshan is reachable from the mainland by a newly constructed bridge. The Phase 2 expansion includes private companies APM Terminals and HPH. Drewry\u2019s Mr Davidson explains that where labour availability and work rules are not constraints \u201cit\u2019s possible to be highly advanced, but not completely automated. The ports can have the latest kit, for example OCR and other sensor capabilities, and anti-sway or driver assist gear, but not go the fully unmanned route.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, transhipment specialist Singapore is space-constrained though its location supports both hub\/spoke and mainline handoffs. Port owner PSA (controlled by the state\u2019s Temasek Holding) took a joint venture route in the mid 2000s (a decade after Shanghai) bringing in strategic partners in berths at the Pasir Panjang terminal – with a draft of up to 16 metres and gantry reaches spanning 22 boxes. In 2008, PSA joint-ventured with regional specialist PIL on a container facility at its Keppel Terminal, highlighting the strategy of identifying the \u201csweet spots\u201d of customers, such as intra-Asian boxes..<\/p>\n
In contrast with Shanghai, which is now building up its maritime infrastructure, including the flood of service providers who\u2019ve opened offices in recent years, Singapore took very forward-thinking steps in the 1990s to build up world class information connectivity around the port. Consultant John Corley at CH2M Hill, tells Port Strategy <\/i>that planners in Singapore have begun crafting a long term plan, with some thinking about a possible relocation of the port as they implement the next generation of facilities.<\/p>\n
Drewry\u2019s Mr Davidson, comments: \u201cYou don\u2019t really see many small transhipment ports\u2026it\u2019s a high intensity operation, and the speed of handling really needs to be high. Quick turnarounds require a high-tech approach.\u201d Technology is very much a part of Singapore\u2019s streamlined future: last year, PSA Corp launched a Research and Development fund to look into automated systems and optimisation programs for its container ports, in Singapore and around the world.<\/p>\n
In the US, labour interests have resisted automation. An exception has been the \u201csemi-automated\u201d APM Terminal at Portsmouth, Virginia, built on a greenfield site. Yard-work is handled by a fleet of 30 automated rail mounted gantry cranes, while conventional manned vehicles are used to transfer containers on\/off trucks – all benefiting from a yard system linked in to gate operations.<\/p>\n
The facility recently gained direct on dock access to the CSX railroad – now far along in the process of streamlining box movements to the Midwestern US.<\/p>\n
Instead of moving the port way out of town, here the landside infrastructure has come to the port. TranSystems\u2019 Rick Ferrin, whose specialty is the Southeastern US, tells Port Strategy: <\/i>\u201cThe common denominator for ports seeking to exploit their locations is enhanced rail connectivity. Ports need to make their intermodal connections as efficient as possible – a port with good rail connections, available 24 x 7, can be extremely viable even if it\u2019s not the biggest player in its region.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explains that in Miami the real estate allocated to cargo space is constrained by a burgeoning cruise business, so that a road tunnel and a rail link (to a yard about 15 miles away) are part of the bigger strategy of getting containers into\/out of the facility as expeditiously as possible.<\/p>\n
The situation on the West Coast is more problematic. Moffat & Nichol consultant Larry Nye told an American Association of Port Authorities seminar late last year that: \u201cOn the West Coast\u2026 new terminals built with today\u2019s dollars cannot compete unless they are automated.\u201d Mr Nye, based in Southern California, outlined a complex dynamic increasingly driven by environmental considerations, where electrically powered yard equipment and vessel slow steaming (with fewer calls, but more boxes per call) figure into the calculations.<\/p>\n
His presentation quantified the increased productivity that is needed, described as roughly 30%, requiring an increase to about 45-50 gross vessel moves per hour, or six to eight gross moves per quay crane per hour, adding that: \u201cNew terminals are being designed to turn vessels with 12,000 moves per call within four days with headroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drewry\u2019s Mr Davidson explains that terminals which see major box imports need to be designed with dwell times in mind, saying: \u201cThe consignee may not want the box right away.\u201d Experts have suggested that shorter dwell times of three days will be the new paradigm, instead of the more typical five to six days.<\/p>\n
Planners in North America grapple with the right ways to bring such efficiencies to mid-sized ports. TranSystems’ Mr Ferrin raises the possibility, against the backdrop of scarce US government funding for dredging, “there will still be a lot of panamaxes”, and that ports should seek to be “panamax capable”.<\/p>\n
His colleague Jim Lindner offers sage advice for ports of all sizes, all over world, telling Port Strategy <\/i>that planners at ports need to “find their niche, stay within their means, and be realistic”. The axis of specialisation could be along the lines of geography or commodity; for smaller ports, this will often mean not trying to compete head to head with bigger ports. Mr Ferrin sums up neatly: \u201cMake the most of what you\u2019ve got\u201d – advice that could apply to New Orleans, where Mr Ferrin is working on an intermodal terminal with a rail interface, to ports half a world away that cannot go toe-to-toe with Shanghai, Shenzen and Singapore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Strategic planning and setting operational tactics go hand-in-hand, as Barry Parker explains<\/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":[12],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-1868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concessions-investments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1868"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=1868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}