Cape Town ports perform better

The merger of Cape Town Port terminals has increased productivity and performance, Western Province terminal executive Velile Dube says.

Transnet Port Terminal (TPT) had merged its container and multipurpose terminals last month as part of a recovery plan after three weeks of industrial action in May, he said.

Dube said the merger of the terminals, which had always operated as separate entities in the past, allowed TPT to plan holistically, make better use of infrastructure, equipment and facilities, and ensure that customer service and performance across the port were consistent.

It had taken the terminal two weeks from the end of the strike to clear the backlog of vessels, he said.

The terminals gross crane hours (GCH) - the common measure of productivity in the container handling business -- had improved as well as the ship working hours (SWH) - the number of containers that had been moved by the number of cranes working on the vessel in one hour.

The GCH had improved from an average of 22 to 28 GCH and the SWH, which was a key performance indicator for customers, had improved from an average of 39 to 42 SWH, said Dube.

GCH was a crucial factor in container shipping, which required fast and efficient movement of containers by crane operators to reduce the overall cost of doing business, he said.

Stack occupancy had stabilised at 50 percent.

Any figure below 65 percent signalled efficient operations, he said.

Truck turnaround times, to exit and enter the terminal for loading and offloading, had also improved from over 30 minutes to 23 minutes.

The Cape Town Container Terminal had been under pressure during its R5.6 billion, five-year expansion and construction programme which commenced in January 2008.

"We are now looking at berth availability and available infrastructure for the entire Cape Town Terminal, rather than at two separate terminals, said Dube.

"So a container vessel can now come into the port and be berthed at either terminal, with the same TPT management and operations teams working to serve customers across the port."

South Africa's transport system was brought to a standstill earlier this year as 50,000 Transnet workers went on strike over a wage dispute.

The strike had affected freight, pipelines and ships.