Over-capacity now a must to prevent congestion

In its latest report in the Ports and Terminals series, Container Volumes and Terminal Capacity in North Europe II, Dynamar looks at the two major trades connection with North Europe: North Europe-Far East and Transatlantic, and the growing volumes crossing the regions.

According to the report, the services of the 18 carriers operating in these two trades are calling at a total of 17 port in the Gothenburg-Sines range. In 2014, these 17 ports had a total throughput of 53 million teu, an increase of almost 5% over 2013 – a much higher year-on-year growth that was seen in 2013 and 2012. Taking this into account, Dynamar says the outlook for 2015 is “less rosy”.

“The main reason for this congestion phenomenon was and is that demand doesn’t come in nice regular identical volumes to be discharged and loaded every day,” the report states.

“Terminal capacity is a multiple interpretable subject, but the general consensus is that congestion kicks in at 75% utilisation. That said, throughout the 24/7 working week a terminal operator has always been facing and handling peaks and troughs in demand as a standard fact of life,” the report adds.

Growing vessel sizes are also adding to the problem, as very few container terminal have been purpose-built for Ultra Large Container Ships (ULCS) of over 10,000 teu, let alone the 18,000 teu-plus expected by 2019.

According to the report, the consensus among big ship carriers nowadays is that terminals should handle 6,000 moves a day on a ULCS, while the universal consent among stevedores is that a production of 3,500 moves is “a more realistic maximum”.

The report, which is available online, also looks at new 2015 facilities, automation and regional highlights. www.dynamar.com/publications/140