Drewry: fragmentation of capacity a concern

The shipping consultant says that all indications point to the same amount of port calls being made in 2017 along with a pretty consistent number of boxes flowing through North European ports.

Neil Davidson, senior analyst ports and terminals, Drewry, said: “Despite the new alliances the status quo will largely prevail in 2017.”

He pointed out that a much larger concern that ports and terminals should be aware of is negative effects from “fragmentation” of a port’s capacity, or how many parties are involved in ports’ operations, especially in light of the new shipping alliances, which take everything into account when choosing port calls.

The bottom line he said is that bigger ships and alliances mean that fewer larger terminals are needed in each port.

“So there needs to be better cooperation between terminal operators, the only long-term answer is consolidation of ownership,” Mr Davidson added.

Mr Davidson also flagged up the issue of a 10% fall in the number of east-west services at North European ports in the last 12 months, probably due to the shippers’ efforts to reduce overall ship capacity.

Le Havre lost four and Rotterdam lost six services, with Zeebrugge losing all of its remaining services keeping just one terminal open for business.

On a positive note Mr Davidson said, the figures in the report do reflect the slow down in the number of larger ships in service which suggests that the capacity crisis that many ports and terminal operators have had to face is beginning to ease.

The question is, how do ports deal with these changes in demand, especially the fragmented ones, how do they retain existing and win new business.

“With greater cooperation,” Mr Davidson said.

“But it’s all down to the physical layout of the ports. For operators that are closer together there is much more opportunity to cooperate and share equipment and berths. Doing it at a distance is much more challenging both operationally and commercially.”