Hamburg loses to Trieste as southern ports exploit rail
Mediterranean ports are luring trade from Hamburg and Rotterdam as upgraded rail links allow shipping lines to unload containers earlier in the journey from Asia and complete deliveries overland, Bloomberg reports. Trieste on the Adriatic is 22.5 days sail from Singapore, Asia’s No. 2 port, or a week closer than Hamburg, according to A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, owner of the No. 1 container line. The rail journey from the Italian port takes a few more days.
Mediterranean harbors, which vessels transporting goods from Asia encounter first after passing through the Suez Canal, are becoming competitive even for consignments headed further north as shippers slow sailing speeds to reduce diesel costs. The trend may accelerate as south European governments eager to encourage economic growth spend more on rail infrastructure.
“Northern Europe’s market share could be under threat in coming years as more cargo shifts south,” said Mike Garratt, director of Box Trade Intelligence, which monitors 20 global trade lanes. The time saved compared with a journey to the North Sea via Gibraltar can cut transit times or allow even slower sailings, paring fuel use without impacting deliveries.
Luring business from the north may help revive volumes at southern ports, which have suffered more as Europe’s debt crisis crimps growth. Container numbers rose 17 percent in Hamburg and 9.8 percent in Rotterdam in the first half, versus 3.9 percent in Algeciras, Spain, and fell 0.7 percent in Gioia Tauro, Italy.
Deep Water
Shipping lines are exploring all options as vessels bought when demand was higher enter service, hurting freight rates and margins. European box shipments rose 4.5 percent in the first 10 months, trailing an 8 percent gain in capacity, data from Container Trade Statistics shows. Volumes in 2012 may rise 3.1 percent and capacity 10 by percent, according to AXS Alphaliner.
Trieste, located on the open sea 70 miles (113 kilometers) from Venice, has a harbor that’s 18 meters (60 feet) deep and able to handle the largest container ships at full load, unlike northern rivals Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Antwerp, which are situated on river estuaries and rely on regular dredging.
The Italian port has more than 100 container-train services a week provided by Societa Alpe Adria SpA to destinations in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and is targeting countries as distant as Poland, one of the main markets for Hamburg, as it benefits from 334 million euros ($436 million) in spending on docks and infrastructure by 2017.
BMW Bid
A near-term aim is to capture flows from Munich in southern Germany, home to Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Siemens AG and truckmaker MAN SE. The Bavarian city is situated 322 kilometers from Trieste, or about half the distance to Hamburg and Rotterdam, a 12-hour journey for a container train.
Just around a headland to the south, Luka Koper, the only port on Slovenia’s 30-mile coastline, already forwards two- thirds of the goods it handles to Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, south Germany and Austria, for which it’s the No. 1 coastal entry and exit point, with a bigger market share than Rotterdam.
Luka Koper ranks as the Adriatic’s busiest container dock, handling an estimated 600,000 boxes this year, and is one of the biggest Mediterranean auto terminals, spokesman Sebastjan Sik said, with links to Alpine rail routes to be upgraded next year.
Clients include Italy’s Sermar Line Srl and Shipping Corp. of India, or SCI, which said October they’d establish a joint service linking Koper and Venice and Ravenna in Italy with the Indian ports of Nava Sheva and Mundra, easing the transport of exports from the subcontinent to central and eastern Europe.
Paris Link
Marseille Fos, Europe’s fifth-biggest port and the world’s third-largest crude oil terminal, will begin operating extra- long 850-meter container trains to Valenton in the suburbs of Paris next year. It also plans to start services connecting with a truck-on-train “rolling motorway” between Perpignan, close to the Spanish border, and Bettembourg in Luxembourg from 2015.
Total cargo handled at France’s top port rose 1 percent in the first nine months on increased shipments of liquefied gas, fertilizers and cereals as container traffic shrank 6 percent.
Harbors in other countries with economies hurt by the euro crisis might reap similar gains given infrastructure improvements. Vessels operated by CMA CGM SA, the world’s No. 3 container line, take 26 days to reach Piraeus, near Athens, from Taiwan, versus 33 days to Rotterdam and 35 to Hamburg.
The latter has the biggest hinterland among European ports in terms of containers moved by train, truck and barge, serving Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Denmark, and is taking steps to safeguard its market share.
Container numbers moved by train this year rose 9 percent to 2.1 million, the Hamburg Port Authority estimates. Rail traffic to Poland and the Czech Republic will double by 2020, with 400 trains a day versus 1,200 a week today, it said Nov. 29 in a presentation at the Intermodal Europe 2011 conference.
Mediterranean harbors, which vessels transporting goods from Asia encounter first after passing through the Suez Canal, are becoming competitive even for consignments headed further north as shippers slow sailing speeds to reduce diesel costs. The trend may accelerate as south European governments eager to encourage economic growth spend more on rail infrastructure.
“Northern Europe’s market share could be under threat in coming years as more cargo shifts south,” said Mike Garratt, director of Box Trade Intelligence, which monitors 20 global trade lanes. The time saved compared with a journey to the North Sea via Gibraltar can cut transit times or allow even slower sailings, paring fuel use without impacting deliveries.
Luring business from the north may help revive volumes at southern ports, which have suffered more as Europe’s debt crisis crimps growth. Container numbers rose 17 percent in Hamburg and 9.8 percent in Rotterdam in the first half, versus 3.9 percent in Algeciras, Spain, and fell 0.7 percent in Gioia Tauro, Italy.
Deep Water
Shipping lines are exploring all options as vessels bought when demand was higher enter service, hurting freight rates and margins. European box shipments rose 4.5 percent in the first 10 months, trailing an 8 percent gain in capacity, data from Container Trade Statistics shows. Volumes in 2012 may rise 3.1 percent and capacity 10 by percent, according to AXS Alphaliner.
Trieste, located on the open sea 70 miles (113 kilometers) from Venice, has a harbor that’s 18 meters (60 feet) deep and able to handle the largest container ships at full load, unlike northern rivals Hamburg, Bremerhaven and Antwerp, which are situated on river estuaries and rely on regular dredging.
The Italian port has more than 100 container-train services a week provided by Societa Alpe Adria SpA to destinations in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and is targeting countries as distant as Poland, one of the main markets for Hamburg, as it benefits from 334 million euros ($436 million) in spending on docks and infrastructure by 2017.
BMW Bid
A near-term aim is to capture flows from Munich in southern Germany, home to Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Siemens AG and truckmaker MAN SE. The Bavarian city is situated 322 kilometers from Trieste, or about half the distance to Hamburg and Rotterdam, a 12-hour journey for a container train.
Just around a headland to the south, Luka Koper, the only port on Slovenia’s 30-mile coastline, already forwards two- thirds of the goods it handles to Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, south Germany and Austria, for which it’s the No. 1 coastal entry and exit point, with a bigger market share than Rotterdam.
Luka Koper ranks as the Adriatic’s busiest container dock, handling an estimated 600,000 boxes this year, and is one of the biggest Mediterranean auto terminals, spokesman Sebastjan Sik said, with links to Alpine rail routes to be upgraded next year.
Clients include Italy’s Sermar Line Srl and Shipping Corp. of India, or SCI, which said October they’d establish a joint service linking Koper and Venice and Ravenna in Italy with the Indian ports of Nava Sheva and Mundra, easing the transport of exports from the subcontinent to central and eastern Europe.
Paris Link
Marseille Fos, Europe’s fifth-biggest port and the world’s third-largest crude oil terminal, will begin operating extra- long 850-meter container trains to Valenton in the suburbs of Paris next year. It also plans to start services connecting with a truck-on-train “rolling motorway” between Perpignan, close to the Spanish border, and Bettembourg in Luxembourg from 2015.
Total cargo handled at France’s top port rose 1 percent in the first nine months on increased shipments of liquefied gas, fertilizers and cereals as container traffic shrank 6 percent.
Harbors in other countries with economies hurt by the euro crisis might reap similar gains given infrastructure improvements. Vessels operated by CMA CGM SA, the world’s No. 3 container line, take 26 days to reach Piraeus, near Athens, from Taiwan, versus 33 days to Rotterdam and 35 to Hamburg.
The latter has the biggest hinterland among European ports in terms of containers moved by train, truck and barge, serving Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Denmark, and is taking steps to safeguard its market share.
Container numbers moved by train this year rose 9 percent to 2.1 million, the Hamburg Port Authority estimates. Rail traffic to Poland and the Czech Republic will double by 2020, with 400 trains a day versus 1,200 a week today, it said Nov. 29 in a presentation at the Intermodal Europe 2011 conference.