Maersk to cut stops in HK by one-third

Maersk Line, the world's biggest container-shipping company, will slash the number of ship calls in Hong Kong by about a third starting from next month when it transfers the business to an affiliated container terminal at Nansha.


The Nansha facility, Guangzhou South China Oceangate Container Terminal, is partly owned by APM Terminals, which, like the container line, is controlled by Danish shipping giant AP Moeller-Maersk, reported the South China Morning Post.


The shift of the ship calls will be one of the biggest changes at Kwai Chung Container Port for years and affect both Modern Terminals, the Wharf (Holdings) port company, and tug operators.


About 850 container ships owned or operated by Maersk Line call at Hong Kong each year, according to Tim Smith, the firm's chief executive for North Asia. Reducing the number of calls by a third would cut the number of Maersk ships calling at Hong Kong from around 71 a month to 47.


All these vessels are handled by Modern Terminals, whose berths at Container Terminal 9 are almost a dedicated Maersk Line facility.


The shift of the port calls was confirmed by Soren Karas, head of South China for Maersk Line. He said Maersk intended "to create a third major gateway" at Nansha, to augment Maersk's South China gateways at Yantian and Hong Kong. This meant Nansha would replace Hong Kong on several route rotations.


Three Maersk Line services to Africa already call at Nansha. "The plans are to, in the coming months, add three Asia-Europe services – two export and one import, one transpacific and one Far East-Middle East service. The vessels involved thus span a broad range from the somewhat smaller Africa vessels to some of our largest East-West vessels," Karas said.


Maersk Line is finalising its plans for the services calling at Nansha. "The first new calls will start in April and most will be in place by the end of May," Karas said.


Pointing to the reasons for the shift, he added: "The move is first and foremost because we believe that the South China load area is large enough to have three gateways and that we can develop a superior product for our clients with this set-up."


He also said the potential cargo growth volumes in the western part of Guangzhou and the western side of the Pearl River Delta were higher than in South China generally.


"In short, Nansha offers Maersk Line, and by extension our customers, service reliability, a good location, high productivity, competitive cost levels and significant capacity to grow."


Explaining the cost implications, Karas added: "Nansha is able to offer competitive terminal handling costs compared to other terminals in the area, on top of high service levels. On the other hand, adding Nansha to the global network comes at a cost of steaming time and port costs for mother vessels – so one needs a certain scale in the port for it to be sensible.


"The Nansha gateway will attract volumes that in some cases move via Shenzhen ports and in others via Hong Kong. The latter is notably the case for some of the volumes that today are barged from western Pearl River Delta ports. This is the reason why as the new deployment falls in place, there will be fewer main-haul calls in Hong Kong.


"However, it is very important to stress that Hong Kong remains one of our three strongholds here. The services that cater to our local Hong Kong business will generally remain, as will several strings still cater to transhipment volumes from the western Pearl River Delta and internationally in Hong Kong."


Karas said the potential cost savings for exporters and importers depended on their current mode of transportation and location of production. He said the cost of trucking a 40-foot container to Shekou, Chiwan or Yantian in Shenzhen from a customer in Zhongshan would be US$160 per container higher than if they trucked it to Nansha for loading. "For a location like Zhuhai, this number jumps to $200. The eastern side of Guangdong will of course not see such benefits, hence the reason why we still want a gateway there – Yantian."


Modern Terminals sidestepped a detailed list of questions about the implications for its business from the reduction in port calls by Maersk.


Instead, Modern Terminals spokeswoman Joel Cheung said: "This highlights the increased strategic significance of the western Pearl River Delta, which underscores the importance of Modern Terminals' development at Da Chan Bay near Shenzhen to support western Pearl River Delta growth. We look forward to continuing this partnership."
(Source:http://www.cargonewsasia.com)