London Gateway ‘to be UK’s busiest box terminal within first year’


London Gateway ‘to be UK’s busiest box terminal within first year’



DP World has yet to name a customer but voices confidence in port’s prospects

This was on Lloyds list this morning ???? London Gateway will have 5 ship to shore cranes by the end of the year !!!!!

Felixstowe 34 ship to shore cranes
Tilbury 13 sts cranes
Southampton 12 sts cranes
Liverpool 8 sts cranes
Thamesport 8 sts cranes

The maths here do not add up at all.


London Gateway: “almost full by the time it opens”.
Bin Sulayem: London Gateway will be “almost full by the time it opens”.
DP World has yet to name a customer but voices confidence in port’s prospects
DP WORLD claims London Gateway will have a higher utilisation rate than any of its major UK rivals within its first year of operation, despite the fact it has yet to announce a single shipping line customer.
As well as being unable to name a carrier customer for the terminal, DP World is also unable to name a single tenant to have signed up to its adjoining logistics park. DP World chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem would only say the terminal would be “almost full by the time it opens”.
“We are not in a hurry to go to shipping lines and say ‘Come and sign’, because we want to be comfortable when we open,” he said. “The business will come. We have commitments from consignees who want their business to be in London Gateway.
“It’s not something we haven’t done in the past. When you do something new, if you don’t have the experience and past history, you listen to experts, which can sometimes lead to confusion, but because we have done it before and succeeded, it’s easier.”
Mr bin Sulayem said DP World faced a similar challenge when it opened Jebel Ali container port in 1979. At the time, four rival ports were already in operation.
The key to convincing businesses to switch to a new port, he said, was by selling the supply-chain savings that shippers could make by utilising a terminal and logistics park close to the country’s main population centre.
“Logistics will be a major issue there. I believe a lot of companies will come to London Gateway and start their logistics because it is so convenient. It will act as the link in the supply chain that will allow companies to ship items just as they are needed on the shelf.”
When it opens, London Gateway will have space to accommodate Europe’s largest logistics park and an initial terminal capacity of 1.6m teu, which will expand to 3.5m teu when demand requires it.
However, the London Gateway team has yet to reveal any customers signed up to use the logistics park, even though department store Marks & Spencer and freight forwarder Uniserve are understood to have been in negotiations for around a year.
Industry sources suggest the current market conditions make businesses unwilling to alter their existing supply-chain operations to an unproven set-up. Usually, new developments offer an anchor tenant low rates to offset these concerns, but DP World appears to be refusing to do so.
“We are not in a hurry. Usually, when you are in a hurry, you will sign a bad deal. There are many prominent names that would love to be in London Gateway and if we tell them to sign, they will sign, but at a crazy rate,” said Mr bin Sulayem.
“What will happen is when the port opens, they will sign. One of them is ready to sign. They need it; we know they need it.”

Comments

  1. What a load of bull! No way can they compete with Southampton and Tilbury let alone Felixstowe in the first year!

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  2. So they have no shipping lines signed up,no companies signed up to the logistics park but advertise they will be the busiest container port in the first year,do they think we are stupid. How an earth do they think they will be able to compete with the other major container terminals so quick,sounds like they are starting to panic and realise it may not be as easy as they keep going on about. Has reality finally hit home.

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  3. I am pleased that people are starting to wake up to all the spin & proper-gander about this new terminal. And don't forget that this ultra modern / efficient / safety conscious port is NOT going to recognise a Trade Union.

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  4. I like the safety conscious part Jebel Ali has one of the worst safety records around !!!

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  5. Oh dear sounds like desperate times down on the Thames. If this statement has really come out of London Gateway I think they may need to read it again and shoot the corporate affairs bod who published this nonsense. Busiest box terminal within the first year,think it may take a bit longer than that Mr Bin Sulayem.

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  6. retired felixstowe docker26 March 2013 at 05:45

    after spending nearly all of my working life at felixstowe docks, i cannot see the dock company or dockers letting go very easy to any of there customers and will fight hard to keep them , with the small extension they now going to do that will bring the s/shore cranes to about 45 gonna take some very good competition to beat that in the UK ports market

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  7. The statement is a little subjective, as it does not truly quantify what assumptions (capacity and demand numbers) have been used. If we were to assume that "capacity" is what the present 5 QC's can deliver, then we probably have a number of less than 1 million TEU annualised. Just one large to mid-sized customer could easily bring close to that, so you might end up with a mathematical answer of say 80-85% utilised. It would then be hard to objectively dismiss this story and the statements, but the story should be taken in a less sensationalised context that a high utilisation of a small capacity is not as dramatic as it is reported here to be! LGW does however offer an "interesting" proposition, but the "battle" is there to be lost by Felixstowe (and the others), so now would be an appropriate time to lift up performance and keep a tight lid on costs to avoid the "loss scenario". It is in our own hands, let's not disappoint!

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  8. London Gateway does have agreement in principle with several shipping lines, all of which serve the Asia-Europe trades and currently use other UK ports. The actual contracts become effective as soon as London Gateway is officially open for business.

    None of the big Asian lines wants to terminate their current contracts until London Gateway is able to handle their ships.

    Suffice it to say that there will be fewer Asian-owned container vessels using Felixstowe, Thamesport and Southampton come 2014.

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