Port congestion raises concerns

Congestion at Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL) have led to an operator diverting a 261-metre container ship to Northport.

ANZEX ANL’s Constantinos P is be the biggest vessel to berth in Northland where it is due to offload 1,300 containers.

It was scheduled to arrive in Auckland on December 5, but congestion pushed its berthing date back to December 22, which led to the decision to go to Northport instead.

However, rail link to Northport, pictured, doesn’t reopen until January 11 so the containers will need to be moved by road.

David Aitken, chief executive of National Road Carriers, says while aware of supply-chain issues and disruptions at POAL, unloading 1,300 containers from the largest ship to visit Northport raises safety concerns.

He adds the vessel’s discharge will require 2,600 road trips for trucks to travel there and then bring the containers to New Zealand’s biggest city.

“There is poor roading infrastructure between Auckland and Northport, including two accident black spots at Dome Valley and the Brynderwyns,” he told NBR.

“The trucks will not only be interacting with busy December traffic, our members will need to ensure drivers sent north have the experience to navigate Northland’s roads – line-haul presents different challenges to metropolitan roads.”

Aitken says taking so many trucks out of circulation and sending them to Northport will also have a knock-on effect on the Auckland and Waikato supply chains.

Extra costs for bringing the 1,300 containers to Auckland will be charged to the goods’ importers, raising the possibility of price rises for the final consumers.

Many in the industry blame congestion on POAL’s delayed automation, but the latter itself puts the delays down to a shortage of 50 workers.

The automation project and staff shortage, coupled with a worldwide container shortage, have led to delays to enter port, such as the Constantinos P’s 17-day wait, becoming common, reports NBR.

Shipping lines are charging congestion fees, on top of already-high sea freight rates. Importers are facing long delays in getting stock they want for Christmas sales.

They have been using Tauranga as a release valve for congestion, but limited rail capability has resulted in a container backlog at the Bay of Plenty.

Waiting game

According to an NZ Herald report on December 8, up to 11 container ships were anchored in the Hauraki Gulf waiting to be processed at POAL at the weekend, but the port’s general manager of communications, Matt Ball, says that has now reduced to six.

The vessels currently anchored were one bulk carrier, one car ship and four container ships. There were a further five ships at anchor waiting to go into Northport and five waiting to go into Tauranga.

POAL has already recruited 15 extra people to help it process the containers more quickly and hopes to have one extra crane crew in place before Christmas.

“Our biggest problem is that we don’t have enough trained staff to handle the extra demand,” says Ball, who adds the use of its robot straddle carriers to help move more freight is also being increased.

Before Covid-19, it was uncommon for POAL to have any ships waiting to be unloaded and on the odd occasion when it did there would only be one or two at a time, says Ball.

“I think the largest queue previously has been when brown marmorated stink bugs were discovered on-board car ships, which resulted in quite large delays to car imports. 

“This sort of thing only happens in exceptional circumstances, as we have this year with Covid.”

Ball says the delays are happening worldwide. Demand between Asia and the US had also grown by more than 20 per cent, while New Zealand faces “unprecedented and unexpected” demand.

Demand is expected to continue into 2021, with more than a month of back orders from manufacturers in China waiting to be shipped.

Read the December issue of Autofile magazine to find out about the concerns of the automotive industry.