Asia Ports Under Pressure to Improve Productivity

Andy Lane said that Maersk Line CEO Soren Skou would ideally like to see 6,000 container moves per day at ports. 

Asian ports are facing pressure to improve productivity in the face of mega-vessels and mega-alliances driving up competition, but at the expense of leaving equipment idle during off-peak times, JOC reports. 

Jonathan Beard, vice president and global lead ports and logistics for consultant firm ICF International said that the pressure is particularly high at transshipment points of the journey. 

"Transshipment is footloose and requires handling of the largest vessels and the wins and losses are substantial and the volumes of cargo that can switch with mega-alliances can be very high," said Beard at the TPM Asia Conference this week. 

However, "it is wonderful to throw eight of your newest cranes at the biggest vessel when it comes in, but it is not helpful if for the rest of the week those cranes lay idle."

Andy Lane, partner at Container Transport International Consultancy highlighted the fact that average utilization of cranes rarely went above 60 percent.

"There needs to be some mindset changes because we have an abundance of redundant assets sitting there doing nothing and we are claiming port congestion and spending billions on building port capacity."

In the meantime, Lane said that big players such as Maersk Line have been demanding faster and more efficient movements in ports.

He brought up the world's most productive port, the United Arab Emirate's Khorfakkan Container Terminal as an example, which currently makes about 179 moves an hour on ships that were more than 8,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).

"Maersk Line CEO Soren Skou who wants to see 6,000 container moves per day, or 250 moves per hour. That means Khorfakkan Container Terminal would have to improve by 40 percent to match that number," he said.

Instead, Lane proposes a better use of cranes' downtimes, spreading work out over the week in order to ensure maximum productivity at ports. 

"If you utilize your asset 75 percent of the time, spread the work out over the week and at 39 moves a hour, your crane can produce 400,000 TEUs per year, mathematically. That is the maximum potential," he said. 

This past year has seen mega-alliance form in the shipping industry as companies seek to cut costs.

Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) entered into the 2M deal this summer, while CMA CGM, China Shipping Container Lines Co. (CSCL) and United Arab Shipping Co.(UASC) announced their Ocean Three alliance last month.