ECSA under the microscope

Dynamar’s East Coast South America Trades 2015 publication comes at an interesting time of structural change for these trades. New container line consortia arrangements are in evidence, the number of deep-sea and regional shipping lines continues to reduce, larger vessels continue to appear, container terminal capacity in key locations is under pressure and just around the corner is the start of operation of the new Panama Canal locks in turn opening the door to larger vessel sizes making direct calls from Asia.

And as if all that isn’t enough there are all the widespread industry challenges in play not the least of which is freight rates that are in many cases below survival level.

With this daunting scenario at hand, albeit that there are still new opportunities, it is extremely important to understand the current and potential future characteristics of major and minor East Coast South America Trades.

With larger vessels already cascading down into the main ECSA trades there has been growing pressure on a number of ports, gateway and transhipment or a combination of both.

Challenge change

And it is clear the challenges are different along the coastline – for some it is to work to be able to accommodate the larger vessels. For others, it is the need to pile on more deep draft capacity to meet demand, as is the case in Cartagena, Colombia where strong growth on the part of Hamburg Sud is pushing the port’s Contecar facility towards becoming a virtual dedicated facility. The owners of Contecar are, for instance, known to be one of the parties interested in acquiring the new deepwater terminal at Puerto Bahia – now up for sale – as a path to meeting future capacity needs.

The Report highlights eleven different terminal operators – global and regional – active in 20 container handling facilities along the trade lanes. It also identifies the main trade lanes – nine direct trades without transhipment – and in conjunction with this reviews the container shipping lines active in them. It records that the deep-sea lines have reduced in number from 20 to 19, compared to the figure recorded in Dynamar’s 2013 study, and four fewer than in 2011.

In terms of the supply of container carrying capacity Mediterranean Shipping Company comes out on top with 1.3m teu (as of the start of 2015), Hamburg Sud second with 1.1m teu and then a big drop down to third position with Hapag Lloyd accounting for 523,000 teu.

The data presented is detailed and useful to ports and terminal operators seeking to consolidate or acquire liner calls in what continues to be an attractive and developing region.