Trieste Threatens Hamburg as Southern Ports Deploy Rail
Trieste Threatens Hamburg as Southern Ports Deploy Rail
By Niklas Magnusson and Boris Cerni
December 23, 2011 1:42 AM EST
(Updates with comparison of import figures in fifth paragraph, change in focus of European trade in 10th.)
Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) — 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.
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.
Deep-sea imports through Italy and the Balkans have risen 115 percent over the past 15 years, while Germany, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands posted a 69 percent gain, figures compiled by Box Trade Intelligence show.
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 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.
In addition to improved rail links, Trieste also sits 71 kilometers closer to the “center of gravity” for the region’s ports compared with 1996 as demand grows faster in Central and Eastern Europe than further west, while Rotterdam is relatively more distant, according to Box Trade Intelligence.
Just around a headland to the south of Trieste, 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.
Paris Link
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.
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.
Piraeus Potential
Harbors in other countries hurt by Europe’s sovereign-debt 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.
Southern ports have suffered most as the crisis crimps growth. Box numbers fell 0.7 percent in Gioia Tauro, Italy, in the first half and rose 3.9 percent in Algeciras, Spain, versus gains of 9.8 percent in Rotterdam and 17 percent in 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.
–Editors: Chris Jasper, Heather Harris.
To contact the reporters on this story: Niklas Magnusson in Hamburg at nmagnusson1@bloomberg.net; Boris Cerni in Ljubljana, Slovenia, at bcerni@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net; Angela Cullen at acullen8@bloomberg.net; James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net