The biggest ports of Europe are not big enough to house the growing container vessel imports from Asia. So to cope up with the ‘space crunch’, many ports are raising their terminal capacity.
Serious congestion issues are troubling the biggest European ports due to their failure to expand fast enough to accommodate burgeoning imports of container vessels from Asia.
Industry officials are of the view that the only solution for growing chaos at ports is to upgrade the terminal capacity to handle the growing imports of manufactured goods from China. However, the expansion work is not going fast enough to match pace with the trade flow.
The data from CLECAT (a European association for transport, logistic, and customs services) reveals that container shipping is projected to rise 7.8% annually during the period spanning from 2005 to 2011, while the port capacity of Europe is anticipated to hike by just 4.2%.
Due to high congestion, port of Rotterdam (largest in Europe), Hamburg in Germany (second largest port in Europe) and Southampton and Felixstowe, Britain, had to return container vessels in 2007, said industry officials, according to news reported by Cargonewsasia on June 15, 2007.
In the quarter one of 2007, 73% of container vessels got late entry in European ports due to docking delays. It was a rise of 45% from the same period in 2006, as per the data from Drewery Consultants, according to news published on June 14, 2007 by International Herald Tribune.
Jan Westerhoud, President, ECT, the chief container terminal operator at Port of Rotterdam, said that the trade from Far East is flourishing and therefore, the massive volume sometimes lead to delays, as reported by International Herald Tribune on June 14, 2007.
Growth in container volume at Rotterdam port slumped to around 3.8% in 2006 but jacked up to nearly 9.78% in the initial months of 2007. So to tackle the rising trade flow from Asian continent, Rotterdam port is building new container and barge terminals.
Hamburg posted a container volume growth of about 9.4% in 2006. The port has plans to inject around $3.56 Billion Euro to raise its container capacity to double of its current value but the project will reach completion in 2015 only.
Johan Blinde, Manager operations, Dutch office of Hanjin Shipping, is not optimistic about the future of container shipping at the biggest ports of Europe, reported International Herald Tribune on June 14, 2007.