Page 15 - Port Of Hamburg Magazine 01.2018

50 YEARS OF CONTAINERS IN HAMBURG ■
Jens Meier
CEO Hamburg Port Authority
“Mega-containerships with
a capacity of more than
16,000 TEU are meanwhile
calling at terminals in the
Port of Hamburg several
times a week. This shows
that Hamburg is in the thick
of it and fully capable of
handling these. Yet I see re-
lating our competitiveness
and progress to container-
ship growth as the wrong course. I share the view that growth in containership sizes needs to come to an end. The shipping industry should recall the mistakes made in the tanker busi- ness. Optimized processes on the quay walls offer far higher growth and improvement potential than striving for more and more giga-vessels. If we and all participants in the maritime supply chain can further accelerate global door-to-door freight transport, then together we shall be setting the correct ac- cents for the future. The new opportunities in digitalization give us the right framework.”
Rolf Habben Jansen
Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Hapag-Lloyd AG
“Larger ships enable liner
shipowners to significantly
reduce the cost per container
transported. Already being de-
ployed, the mega-ships of the
latest generation therefore
offer a noticeable competi-
tive advantage compared to
the vessels capable of carry-
ing 8,000 TEU that were the
world’s largest at least a decade ago. Yet with still bigger ves- sels, the effect of scale will once again decline. Moreover, still larger vessels present ports with logistics problems. They are not by any means suitable for all trade routes. In the next few years Hapag-Lloyd will not be investing in either newbuilds or still larger ships. By merging last year with UASC, we acquired some extremely large and efficient units for our fleet. So we have the newest fleet in the industry, with the largest average vessel size – and accordingly a highly competitive mix of cut- ting-edge ships for our network.”
Søren Toft
Chief Operating Officer, Maersk Line
“In the container shipping
industry, profitability is to
a high degree dependant on
the industry’s ability to lower
costs and increase efficien-
cy. The concentration of car-
go on larger vessels rather
than multiple, smaller vessels
comes with advantages. That
said, past years’ developments,
cheap time charters and low
fuel prices have somewhat faded the arguments for ultra large con- tainer vessels (ULCVs). In our view, further upscaling in vessel size would require significant investments across the supply chain that may not be meaningfully offset by declines in total cost, and reduce carriers’ flexibility to adapt to changing patterns of trade flows. A lot of value from current sized ULCVs still remains to be extracted – not least in terms of improvements in terminal productivity when accommodating ULCVs. In Maersk Line, our current focus is to ex- plore new approaches to unlock efficiencies in port operations in cooperation with ports and terminals.”
Jens Hansen
COO, Executive Board member, Container Marketing & Tech- nology, Information Systems, Hamburger Hafen und Logistik (HHLA)
“I don’t think 50,000-TEU
ships will be built within the
foreseeable future. Yet it
is important not to get lost
in the detail of ever-grow-
ing ship sizes: To give no
thought to further growth
would be negligent. Shipyard order books currently include containership newbuilds with a breadth of about 62 metres. I can picture ship lengths still increasing to 430 metres. Apart from the technical challenges, a fresh leap in breadth and height would also intensify the challenges for loading and discharging. So the benefits of scale will be reduced by longer distances during the loading/unloading cycle.”
Port of Hamburg Magazine | March 2018 | 15
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