Slow steaming is causing berthing problems in Europe

Slow steaming on a particular Asia-Europe trade can save a shipping line in excess of US$10 million in fuel costs but this means berthing windows need to be changed and this is not so easy in Europe, unlike in Asia, reports Correspondent Paul Richardson Almost half of the container shipping services covering the Asia-US and Asia-Europe and Mediterranean trades, have been operating under the so-called slow steaming structure since the beginning of this year, according to figures provided by PR News Service ComPort database.

The idea of slow steaming first made its impressions on the industry back at the beginning of 2009, when the market slump and global economic downturn began to take effect.

Linked with the increasing cost of fuel, and the environmental issues of CO2 emission reduction, lines jumped at the opportunity to cut speed, save costs and address the eco-friendly concerns of the environmental world.

Now it is not only container shipping that is following the slow steamer path, but also oil tankers and bulk carriers are conducting their own exercises in cost saving.
Slow steaming on a typical Asia-Europe route is understood to save a shipping line in excess of US$10 million in fuel costs, and also on the positive side, it does allow the deployment of a significant slice of the laid-up containership fleet.

But like everything linked to cost savings, it does have its complications.
On the Asia-Europe trade, by adding one vessel and slowing down the service rotation, berthing windows will need to be changed, a task that is not easily addressed in Europe.

It has been proven that ports in Asia, particularly in China, are far more flexible to this approach, and find it a lot easier to shift arrival and sailing days at their terminals.
In Europe, such tasks are not easily addressed mainly because of the lack of space and berthing flexibility available at a port or terminal.

For example, at the Hutchsion Whampoa- owned Port of Felixstowe, the UK's busiest port, dealing with 35 percent of the country's container cargo, has problems with berthing when lines adopt slow steaming. The port has two main container terminals, Trinity and Landguard as well as a RO-RO terminal, Dooley, but is not flexible when it has to make a sudden change in berthing windows.

Most cargo moving westbound on the Asia-Europe trade is time sensitive to market demand, whereas the eastbound cargo flow, normally machinery or waste paper products, does not have such issues.

So on all the Asia-Europe and Asia-Mediter-ranean services now adopting slow steaming, previous eastbound transit times have been increased by anything up to four to five days to accommodate the extra vessel, and lines have had to renegotiate berthing windows with ports in Asia - something that may be relatively easy to arrange, but not always cheaply.

Westbound, transit time is largely unchanged.
On the transpacific trade covering the Asia-US West Coast route, where normally five vessels can operate a weekly service, the addition of one vessel can quite often mean keeping the same berthing windows on either side of the Pacific.
A service running with a 42-day round voyage can easily operate with the same berthing/sailing criteria as one operating with five vessels and a 35-day round voyage.
This is why there are more financial benefits on the Asia-US trade corridor than on the Asia-Europe route.

But with the Asia-US trade showing far more signs of recovery than that of Asia-Europe, the big demand remains centred on the more complicated and costly issue of addressing savings over Europe.

As one senior line executive said: "This is all very well, but in the long term, we are already seeing the crystal ball beginning to mist over.

"When the market returns to a more stable footing, perhaps as early as next year, and our customers are not willing to wait another four or five days for their goods, what happens then?

"Right now we are approaching our customers and saying, we have this new spruced up service that you are going to have pay more for, but guess what, you have to wait another four or five days for your cargo to arrive."
 

Source: Port News