While the opening of Peel Ports’ new deepwater terminal, Liverpool2, has been pushed back, the company views it as just a minor setback and remains positive about the terminal’s potential.

The first phase of the facility’s development is very close to being complete. Five ship-to-shore cranes and six cantilever rail-mounted gantry cranes, manufactured by ZPMC, have been commissioned over the last couple of months. Six more CRMGs arrived at the terminal earlier this month to be installed and commissioned.

Liverpool2 was initially planned to start operations at the beginning of the year, but the official opening is now scheduled to be in early November 2016.

“The delay was primarily due to a very wet winter,” says Roger Megann, group sales director for containers at Peel Ports Group. “The wet and windy weather actually proved to be to the detriment of our workers and for safety reasons we had to slow the development down a little bit. That put us behind schedule, but I don’t think it’s unusual in these cases. Apart from that, everything has gone to plan.”

Liverpool2 is the first deepwater terminal in northern England, with 854 metres of quay and a depth of 16.5 metres. Its cranes are capable of handling ships with capacities of up to 18,000 TEUs, although the target is in the range of 13,500-14,000 TEUs for now.

“The UK brings in a total of about 9.5 million TEUs per year,” says Megann. “Over half of that cargo is destined for the north of England, and I’d estimate about 3.5 million of that is Asian cargo. Today, about 92% of cargo comes in through southern ports. When it arrives in the UK, it has to contend with our finite rail system, congested roads and the high costs of inland transport.”

Peel Ports believes that providing a viable alternative in the North offers an opportunity to improve supply chains, and opens up access to markets such as Ireland and Scotland.

“Carriers will look at how they differentiate services and I think there will be a change going forward,” Megann says. “It’s difficult for the carriers at the moment and results are not positive, to say the least. I think there is a view that they’ll have to do something different and look at different markets, so for us it’s not about convincing them – it’s about demonstrating that the port is now ready. The cargo owners themselves will drive some of that change too, because they’ll want to see their supply chain improve.”

Of course, one of the most important tasks is to actually raise and enhance awareness of the new terminal, so that people don’t just think of Felixstowe or Southampton when they think of England.

“We’d love to think that everyone gets up in the morning and thinks about Liverpool, but the reality is they’ve got a whole world of ports and ships to think about,” says Jeremy Masters, regional director of Asia Pacific at Peel Ports Group. “So we try to get very much on their radar, but it’s not always guaranteed.”

One of the challenges for Masters when talking to shipping lines lies in the fact that the alliances are larger than they used to be.

“Apart from the 2M Alliance, you have five or six carriers in a consortium,” says Masters. “The decision-making process is quite complex and, to a greater or lesser degree, today you probably have to convince three or four people at the same time that they should do something. As the alliances are shifting, everyone’s moving house and that adds to the complexity as well. That is a genuine challenge for all ports.”

Liverpool2 is well on the way towards achieving direct services from Asia because the dynamics are changing and the six feeder services currently coming into Liverpool already carry a lot of Asian cargo, according to Megann, who estimates that there will be an Asian service by the end of 2017.

“I think we have a modest growth aspiration,” he says. “Will we see an Asian service into Liverpool tomorrow? Probably not, but the opportunity is there.”

By Jeffrey Lee

Asia Cargo News | Hong Kong