2017 was the year of change in
container shipping
What is now the impact on the container handling industry?
I believe the main factors are mega-sizing,
consolidation, and terminal volumes.
It is important to keep an eye on the industry.
We are now in the mega-age
We are talking about mega-container lines, -alliances,
-ships, -ports, -terminals
and cranes.
The main mega driver is containerships. They are now
getting very big relative to most trades.
The alliances have been
handling this so far, but the shippers
require decent frequencies,
so we are coming to the limit
By gradual optimization of ship designs,
more TEUs have been squeezed into
more or less the same overall dimensions.
But if exceeding the new
triple 24 by 24 base,
the 24 wide and 12 plus 12 high,
we will see that big investments
are required in the whole transport system.
While the shipping line consolidation
has come very far by now, but not reached the limit,
terminal consolidation
has not really taken off.
Terminal consolidation will take time as it is more on regional
and local level.
This will be seen as a shake out
of terminals which are less
productive, having higher cost per
container and less capacity
The question is this is going
to be handled by the terminal operators or be driven by the
shipping lines and shippers.
Digitalization ties container logistics
much tighter now to the global logistics
environment. It’s really not so
special anymore. In worldwide logistics, consolidation is driven by
big shippers
like retailers, ecommerce
and big manufacturers.
In one-and-a-half years, we can see container
volumes increasing and the automated terminals
are growing and taking market share.
Terminals will be forced to be on
their toes accepting a lower number of calls
by bigger ships and requiring higher
peak capacity and still
with less money per move.
This is felt especially just now
as we’ve seen more deliveries of large ships
than ever before
and this means cascading of
13-16,000 TEU ships
into several new trades
The result will be less terminals
but bigger and much more automated.
Terminal operators are more cautious today,
are more focusing on investing in
existing terminals, optimizing them
instead of investing in greenfield projects.
We are at the age
of expansion and re-equipment.
Most of the terminals in operation today will
also be in operation 20 years from now.
Terminals are expanded by .
adding more land,
by taking out non-core activities
and also by merging with their neighbours.
Bigger calls means that yard capacity
and especially density must increase
and this is achieved by
replacing RTGs and straddle carriers by
automatic stacking cranes, so re-equipping
terminals is not just bigger ship-to-shore cranes,
but also much bigger
and automated and intermodal
yard cranes.