High productivity guaranteed at Hamburg port

TERMINAL productivity is critical if one is the second largest container port in Europe and has to face stiff competition from ports like Le Havre, Rotterdam and Antwerp. Dr Juergen Sorgenfrei, Port of Hamburg's marketing association chairman told The Container Shipping Manager that a key aspect of Hamburg’s edge over its competitors was its ability to ensure full berth utilisation to carriers.

We put this into our contracts saying we guarantee the movement of several hundred TEU per hour, Dr Sorgenfrei said.

Complete loading and unloading in the fixed window time is warranted. Hypothetically, a maximum of 6,000 moves in 30 hours of window time inclusive of customs clearance time are required to service a full container ship arriving at Hamburg.

The costs incurred in ensuring a faster turnaround time and more movement per metre are borne by the port. Maybe we need three bridges (to move containers) and we make a lot of money out of it. Maybe we use four and it is balanced out but if we need five because our productivity is low these days, then we may lose money, but we guarantee for the shipper a fixed time window. And in this we guarantee a minimum productivity per hour per ship. And this is what counts finally, Dr Sorgenfrei said.

The use of more cranes might appear to be effective, however in practice it leads to lesser productivity. This is caused by the difficulties faced in operating the inner bridges.

Ensuring high productivity is important for a number of reasons. With the Asia-Europe trade on the downside, carriers are unwilling to pay extra costs on terminal charges and berth time. According to World Trade Magazine, the cost per container from Hong Kong to Hamburg has come down to US $350. At such a rate, carriers would be unwilling to make a port call if they risk facing delays or have to pay more charges due to delays in loading or unloading.

One way to maximise the productive output of terminal facilities is to ensure the optimum use and rehabilitation of the existing port facilities. Upgrading the infrastructure would require bigger investments, newer generation cranes, employing experienced and skilful crane operators and converting idle facilities into additional yard and berth space.

To upgrade means to have some more quayward operational area.This would speed up the operation in the yard, Dr Sorgenfrei said.

An upcoming rehabilitation project at the Port of Hamburg is the proposal for building a 160-170 hectare new terminal space. It would be built by demolishing a few of the old finger piers in the existing port area.. Four to five berths are planned in the new terminal. It would raise the total port cargo volumes by four to five million TEU. The terminal is expected to be complete by 2016-2017.

Source: CSM