A time before container handlers

The number of containers handled globally has increased nearly 10 per cent, but infrastructure at some Australian ports is not keeping pace.

Speaking at an International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association (ICHCA) meeting in Brisbane, Cullen Grummitt & Roe Group (CGR) chairman and former port engineer Alan Grummitt said Australian port infrastructure lagged behind growth in container movements.

"Port infrastructure has not kept pace with a global 9.8 per cent increase in container movements. This is regrettable," he said.

Grummitt said the Port of Melbourne was the worst affected Australian port.

"The Port of Melbourne is experiencing congestion, delays and huge costs as a result of infrastructure deficiencies. This is good for Sydney and Brisbane ports because ships just move on to the next available port."

Grummitt said port equipment suppliers were affected.

"I would think the market for port equipment won't increase as it should."

Port of Melbourne Corporation wants AUD2 billion to "reconfigure the road network around the port to improve movement of freight traffic and reduce traffic congestion and impacts on local communities".

However, Victorian Government transport minister Peter Batchelor said the port was efficient.

Alan Grummitt, Chairman, Cullen, Grummitt & Roe Pty Ltd, ICHCA Lunch, Brisbane 2006

"The Port of Melbourne is Australia's largest, most efficient container port, with the nation's largest stevedoring facilities, excellent highway connections and extensive rail terminal facilities."

This week the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said productivity had fallen in Australia's major ports in the 2005-06 financial year. The ACCC is directed to provide information to the Federal Government and the community about progress of waterfront reform at Australia's major container terminals. They are Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Burnie and Fremantle.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said growth in loading and unloading containers from vessels had slowed.

"The important industry reforms undertaken in the late 1990s led to a period in which very strong growth in container volumes was handled and costs and prices, in real terms, fell. However, it appears these gains are no longer being made. The growth in container volumes that is predicted to continue raises issues about how the necessary expansion in stevedoring capacity will be managed," he said.

The ACCC report said: "Management of certain land-side logistics may require a more proactive approach to ensure port-land interface does not emerge as a transport bottleneck."

A Victorian report, Container Origin Destination Study, found regional importers "often complained" of shortages in empty container availability. It said 68 per cent of containers were unloaded in Melbourne's outer industrial suburbs, a fact that "challenged the conventional wisdom that most import containers moved only a few kilometres from the port".

A 2004 Western Australian Government report, Fremantle Inner Harbour Container Movement Study, concluded "additional costs are being imposed on the community through inherent inefficiencies [in the container movement chain] with no single stakeholder able to make a significant difference".

It said there was an important role for government in working with stakeholders to "achieve system-wide improvements".

Grummitt said Melbourne's Port of Hastings could perhaps relieve Port of Melbourne's concerns. He said it had "good deep water and plenty of available land, road and rail infrastructure".

In general, however, Grummitt was concerned.

"There are lots of challenges, lots of worries, and lots of stress, but there are others who are worse off," he told the ICHCA meeting.

CGR is a port, harbour and structural engineering group based in Brisbane. It has offices in Sydney, London, Mumbai, Buenos Aires and Kuala Lumpur.