Port well-placed for future

Press, 18 July 1979, Page 21

Port well-placed for future

By

BOB McCORMICK

Lyttelton harbour’s volume of water and accessible dredging surfaces make it one of only two ports in New Zealand suitable for the new shipping concepts being proposed for the turn of the century.

The other is the Marsden Point oil refinery port at Whangarei. The two ports are already being used for first calls by big bulk carriers to lighten off cargoes and reduce draught for entry into other ports.

A close study of the requirements of shipping through the 1980 s and new designs planned for the year 2000 has been made by the chairman of the Hapag-Lloyd AG (Mr Hans Jakob Kruse) who has also had a paper accepted on the subject by the British Shippers’ Council. Hapag-Lloyd AG of Germany, is a member of a powerful New Zealand shipping consortium of four Continental line partners. The others are Compagnie Generale Maritime, France; Nedlloyd Lines, Holland and Lloyd Triestino of Triesta, Italy. Directors of the Ham-burg-based Hapag-Lloyd who are expected in New Zealand before the end of the year are likely to inspect the port of Lyttelton. Other shipowners also share the view that a new generation of shipping will put more emphasis on the physical features of a port than on cargo aggregations. It will be the task of internal transport links to deliver and pick up cargo — not ships. Further ahead is the prospect of a huge container terminal in the middle of the Pacific, with the present terminals in Australia and New Zealand being used as bases for feeder ships. Mr Kruse said he had been asked to project a constructive and creative view of the future of world trade and shipping beyond the present reces-

sion in the shipping industry. Growth in that area would be not far short of six billion by the year 2000, he said. Ships catering for this demand would be fewer and bigger, requiring deepwater ports with vast swinging areas and natural weather protection. The projections are expected to jolt port planners into the conclusion that the rapidly developing innovations in shipping since the start of the container age are catching up fast. The year 2000 is not very far away. Mr Kruse says ocean transport will extend its

role as a prime carrier, and deep-sea shipping will continue to record the lowest real cost per tonnemile.

Average ship sizes will grow, limited more by physical restrictions than by port productivity. More shore control will be required to handle the higher traffic density of larger ships. A prime requirement for the ships of the future will be deep water and a port’s ability to keep increasing the depth. Lyttelton is now approaching 11.59 m (38ft) with present dredging power able to get down to 15.25 m (50ft). While Mr Kruse does not expect early development of the unmanned

ship, planned automation tion will draw crew complements and qualifications closer to those customary in the aviation field. He does not regard the introduction of nuclear power into commercial shipping as yet in sight. Ocean transport will probably be amongst the last in the queue of those able to opt out of fossil energy dependence. Mr Kruse predicts that the container system will forge ahead, gaining more than 80 per cent of the liner trade even before the year 2000. “When American ports were handling fewer than

500,000 containers a year in 1968, who would have listened to a prediction that the country would be moving more than six million containers less than ten years later?” He describes continerisation as a true innovation and not just a refinement of conventional shipping. He calls it a “young product no longer in its infancy, but still in its ‘teens in deep sea shipping.” Containers have overcome the limitations of inland faciltiies, ports’ lack of funds, political objections and the reservations of national lines with commitments to conventional tonnage. “None of those hurdles proved to be high enough

for those developing countries already participating in the game,” he said. “Last year, Honduras handled more containers than Brazil, Iceland more than Indonesia and the Philippines more than the whole of South America.” Mr Kruse said changing trends would see roll-on ships and bulk carriers almost replacing conventional shipping, and rotating between fewer ports where load factor management would be of prime concern. “Bulk carriers could have captured a segment of the container market and hner markets will be more effectively integrated into global dry cargo shipping,” he added. 1 .' The importance to Lyt- j telton of the emphasis on | this type of shipping is i revealed by the cargo fig- | ures for the port last year. I Liquid and bulk cargoes made up 40 per cent of, the port’s cargo. Crude oil tankers and oil product carriers are j expected to take a big share of the seaborne , trade in the future in a; scramble with container ships, bulk carriers, com-1 bination ships and unit ! bulk carriers. Shipowners throughout the world are known to be looking now at the ability of ports to cope with these carriers, and with even greater demands through the 1980’s. They are clearly starting to say Be coming on stream,” and giving plenty of warning about their requirements.