[020913.EN.SEA] Mega Ships, Cascading, Output Expansion To Transform Box World: Drewry

TERMINAL operators face big challenges as they deal with incoming 18,000 TEU mega ships, which few can handle, cope with the cascading big ships on smaller ports as well as the sheer explosion of output worldwide, says a Drewry report.

The size of the world's biggest containership has quadrupled in 20 years, said the Drewery's report, and on the Asia-Europe route, it has doubled in 10 years, spawning huge alliances like the P3, the union of Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM.

Container port demand is expected to rise five per cent a year by 2017, or 186 million TEU - equivalent to the total throughput of all Chinese ports in 2012, said the report.

"This illustrates what a colossal industry the container port business has become - something that is often overlooked because it is geographically fragmented across nearly 1,300 terminals across the world," the report said.

The report warned that "rampant and rapid cascading of larger ships into secondary trade lanes is likely to create more port problems than the 18,000 TEU monsters destined for the Asia-Europe trade lane".

According to Drewry's senior ports and terminals analyst Neil Davidson, many changes are coming to container terminal operators. "Changes in ownership as cash strapped shipping lines sell stakes in terminals, and aggressive terminal buyers chase expansion opportunities.

"Changes in operations and infrastructure as ever larger containerships have to be accommodated not just in Europe and Asia, but around the world.

"Changes in demand as modest growth still generates large absolute volume increases. For example, even if they only perform at the world average, Shanghai or Singapore will add almost 10 million TEU to their total throughput by 2017. A figure of 10 million TEU is more than the entire container port throughput of the UK, India or Brazil."

Source : HKSG.