Europe’s Gateway to Asia, as the Port of Hamburg likes to call itself, may have been hit by the downturn in traffic to and from Russia resulting from sanctions slapped against Russia following its involvement in the Ukraine crisis, but the port’s traffic with Asia – particularly China – continues to be as robust as before.
Hamburg’s volume of inbound and outbound shipments reached unprecedented levels in 2014. The number of containers arriving from China, the port’s biggest market, surged in Hamburg, which is Europe’s second-largest container port after Rotterdam. Nonetheless, the economic weakness of some important markets was also reflected in the throughput figures recently presented by the port’s marketing arm. In particular, the downturn in Russia has impacted the port’s overall traffic. Sanctions imposed by the West, including Germany, against Russia because of the Ukraine crisis, have sharply reduced that country’s air and sea trade, drastically cutting down the container traffic with the port.
Hamburg port sources told Asia Cargo News that it handled some 660,000 containers bound for or originating from Russia in 2014. This was a near 8% decline over the previous year. Indeed, Ingo Egleff, a member of the board of directors of the port’s marketing arm, stated at a recent press conference in Hamburg that he did not expect the situation in Russia to brighten up in the coming months.
“The economic situation in Russia has worsened, and the weak rouble has invariably led to a drop in exports to Russia,“ Egleff acknowledged.
The sanctions imposed by the West had affected trade with Russia, though the impact in the past had been weak. Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA), the port company, had earlier reported on the negative consequences of the Ukraine conflict. The HHLA has its own operational venue in the Ukraine port of Odessa, and is consequently hard hit by this conflict.
There is widespread consensus within the shipping industry that, besides its well-established business with China, Hamburg will now aggressively market its services in other countries of Asia, some of which may include India, Vietnam, Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia. Hamburg, which already has good ties with ports in these countries, is expected to further intensify its cooperation with these ports.
The port’s robust growth in other traffic routes has more than offset the weakness in the Russia container traffic. Shipments to and from countries such as Poland, Finland, Malaysia and, particularly, China showed a significant rise. In the final analysis, a total of some 9.7 million containers were handled in 2014, reflecting a 5% increase over the previous year. Egloff expected that the number of containers in the current year would rise to more than 10 million.
However, strategic planners at the port are unsure of the future because the depth of the Elbe River makes access difficult for the latest generation of the gigantic vessels that ply the oceans these days. Such ships cannot navigate through the present depth of the river; according to the port’s marketing organization, about 180 large-size ships, accommodating more than 13,300 containers each, headed towards Hamburg in 2014. That was more than twice as many as in the previous year.
Indeed, the number of the mega-ships is expected to further increase, considering that the deployment of such juggernauts results in significant cost savings: the calculation is that transportation costs for each container are reduced for the shipping line by loading more containers on a ship. With this in mind, Egloff urged the authorities to take a quick decision in favour of deepening of the Elbe. The project is currently being heard in the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig which will give its judgment after a decision is taken from the European Court of Justice.
Hamburg has, of course, been receiving ships of larger sizes, including the ocean giants such as the CSCL Globe and the CSCL Pacific Ocean. These two ships, whose are each about 400 metres in length, recently docked in Hamburg. Indeed, the port experienced a 112% increase in the number of ships with 13,300-container capacity calling at the port. But Hamburg has to prepare itself for the future: while the number of medium-sized ships continues to decline, the number of large ships with a five-digit container capacity has been rising. Thus, while the number of ships calling at Hamburg port is declining, the number of containers continues to rise.
The increase is, particularly, discernible on the trade-dominated North Europe-Asia route where the large-sized ships are increasingly deployed, with experts predicting ships that will have 20,000 container capacity. Hamburg port handled 9.73 million teus in 2014, a 5% increase over the previous year. For the current year, port experts predict the port to cross the 10 million teu mark.
But they have also been closely monitoring that neighbouring Jade-Weser-Port received in March the largest container ship, MSC Oscar, with a 19,224 container capacity. The ship is “as large as four football fields,” according to one Hamburg-based expert. Such ships are expected to be deployed soon in traffic with China. On the other hand, the visit of this giant ship to Germany also brought into sharp focus Hamburg port’s own disadvantaged position because of the Elbe’s depth, the further deepening of which is fiercely opposed by environmentalists. While the MSC Oscar could easily sail from German ports to Rotterdam and thence to Asia, the CSCL Globe, in comparison, experienced considerable delay in its sailing schedule because the ship had difficulties sailing to Hamburg.
Niels Harnack, managing director of China Shipping Agency told journalists that all the big shipping lines operating to Asia will deploy such large ships three to five years from now.
Meanwhile, Hamburg’s rival, Rotterdam, could increase its 2014 throughput by 6% to 12 million teus. Nevertheless, both ports have maintained more or less the same level of container traffic with Asia, with each having about 3 million containers to and from China.
Hamburg is also Europe’s largest railway port. Some 2.2 million teus are transported to or from Hamburg by freight trains, a share of about 43%. However, transport by trucks – at 47% – continues to be the most common mode of transporting containers to or from the port.
By Manik Mehta
International Correspondent | Hamburg
