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May 3rd, 2015
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Last month, DP World bought the Maher terminal in Prince Rupert, with a 2014 throughput of a little over 600,000 teu for more than a half billion US dollar - just under $1,000 per teu handled, comments Peter de Langen at his "The Analyst" column in Port Strategy. Two aspects of this deal are interesting. First, the price seems to indicate huge confidence in growing volumes: the terminal is to be expanded to a capacity of about 1.35m teu, with studies on the feasibility of a further expansion to about 2.5m teu. Second, the fact that the...
April 24th, 2015
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The variety of pricing structures is remarkable. For instance, a substantial amount of charges are paid by shippers in South Africa, contrary to most other countries. In Singapore, virtually all revenues come from port dues and virtually none from land rents in ports or charges to shippers. The opposite is true in many US and Canadian ports; here, the majority of revenues are from land lease agreements. This suggests that 'history' may be an important factor. How can pricing structures in ports be best explained? are they based on a specific...
April 21st, 2015
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By Theo Notteboom Operational co-operation between container shipping companies comes in many forms ranging from slot-chartering and vessel-sharing agreements to multi-trade strategic alliances. The first strategic alliances between shipping lines date back to the mid-1990s, a period that coincided with the introduction of the first post-Panamax containers vessels on the Europe-Far East trade. In 1997, about 70% of the services on the main East-West trades were supplied by the four main strategic alliances. Today, four large alliances are...
April 20th, 2015
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Macroscopic patterns of global maritime flows  and global trade growth has inevitably resulted in a regular increase in the number of ports and vessels since the late nineteenth century. Yet the number of inter-port links and vessel calls has fluctuated much more widely. Over the last 125 years, three peaks of global maritime activity have coincided with periods of relative economic prosperity and great and the large-scale diffusion of technological innovations: steam shipping (1890-1925), diesel engines (1960-1970) and massive containerships...
April 14th, 2015
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By Theo Notteboom Container port rankings look at individual ports. Following such an approach Shanghai is the largest container port in the world (35.28 million TEU in 2014) followed by Singapore (33.87 million TEU). Such rankings can be a bit misleading as regions with several medium-sized container ports might seem less important than regions with only one large load centre. When grouping seaports together in multiple-port regions we get a better picture of the container port handling hotspots in the world. The chart provides an...
April 14th, 2015
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By Theo Notteboom Container vessels of more than 19,000 TEU are already operational on the Europe-Far East trade. The CSCL Globe and MSC Oscar are notable examples. Ships of over 20,000 TEU have been ordered by a number of carriers such as OOCL. The chart shows the implication of a visit of such a mega vessel to the port of Antwerp or Rotterdam, two of the largest container ports in Europe. A call of a 20,000 TEU vessel is expected to result in an average call size of 8,000 TEU. Some 70% of that volume is gateway cargo, the remaining 30%...
April 7th, 2015
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By Theo Notteboom An analysis of liner services on the North Europe – Far East trade reveals that average vessel sizes have increased from 4,250 TEU in 1998 to 12,200 TEU in 2015. The number of liner services on the North Europe – Far East trade peaked in 2006 with over 30 regular services. Today just over 20 weekly services connect North Europe to the Far East. The combination of ever large container vessels combined with a relative decline in the number of ports of call per liner service results in larger call sizes. The above chart...
March 31st, 2015
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In 2014, the Panama Canal celebrated its centennial-spotlighting its legacy as an important gateway of international trade but also raising questions about its future in an increasingly integrated global economy. The Panama Canal expansion project will open a new set of locks and will complete several ancillary projects, such as dredging and widening, in early 2016 at an estimated cost of $6.2 billion. As is common with megaprojects, however, unforeseen events and cost overruns are likely to increase the final price tag. The expansion is...
March 31st, 2015
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By Theo Notteboom The Straits of Gibraltar is strategically located on some of the most important East-West trade lanes. Ports in the wider region around the Straits have good reasons to convince shipping lines of making a call at their container terminal facilities for transhipment and interlining purposes. Algericas at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula was the first to reap the benefits of its geographical location. Its share in the total volume handled by the five ports considered in the graph reached close to 70% in the...
March 29th, 2015
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By Thanos Pallis Which are the top-10 cruise ports in the Meditteranean and its adjoining seas? PortEconomics co-director Thanos Palllis compiled the list of the 10 largest cruise ports in terms of passenger movements in 2014, and compared these figures to the years 2013 and 2010, in a single picture, with PortEconomics provides this information to its readers. The data were collected in the context of a statistical report prepared for MedCruise (the association of ports in the Med and its adjoining seas), with Thanos Pallis,...
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