EQUIPMENT

Filling up with empties?

18 years ago

Empty containers are a fact of life – but that doesnt mean busy ports want to run full-scale empty box storage operations. Felicity Landon reports on the issues

Port Strategy: "Empties account for about 20% of total port moves globally ... something that everybody has to deal with." Neil Davidson, Drewry

“There were unlimited quantities of land available and there were all these empties sloshing around the Middle East that nobody could get rid of; the idea was that if they were aggregated in Aden, you could create an empties hub,” he says. “But the problem is you get very little money for handling empties and making it work.”