Pressure on to revive expansion plans

Before the 2009 slump, port planning was all about expansion and adding capacity as quickly as possible, noted the report. “Then, suddenly, [ports] were all faced with changing their mindset towards drastic cost control and halting of projects,” said the consultant’s Neil Davidson, adding that it may be difficult for ports to make another about-face.

Mr Davidson also told Port Strategy that “ongoing issues of raising finance create yet further challenges in the process of reactivating plans”.

Container throughput is projected to increase globally by an average of 7.2% a year between 2009 and 2015. As a result, global container port volumes are forecast to rise to 718m teu, an increase of just over 50%.

However, the report noted that at present, the capacity of the world’s container terminals is forecast to grow much more slowly, showing a total rise of just under 20% by the 2015 mark.

Several parts of the world could see the spectre of congestion returning by 2015 if some of the originally planned expansion projects cannot be reactivated within the next three to five years. Some regions, most notably the Far East and Middle East, could start to show average utilisation levels of around 95% within the next five years.

Mr Davidson said: “Terminal expansion plans have understandably been put on ice on a widespread basis and it is exceptionally difficult to forecast the scale, timing and phasing of capacity development going forwards.”

He added: “The terminal operators and developers aren’t saying much so there is a lack of transparency which requires a high degree of judgement on Drewry’s part. Meanwhile the recovery of volumes is quite marked in many locations and it raises the question as to whether capacity plans can be reactivated quickly enough. This is especially so given that obtaining finance for investments is a much slower and more demanding process than it was.”