WEATHER DISRUPTIONS NOW A WORRYING “REALITY”

Serious weather is increasing impacting terminal availability


Alarming growth in the amount and severity of typhoons and cyclones in Asia is “a real disruption and a real reality” for ports and terminals in the region.

Speaking at TOC Asia 2019, Jeremy Nixon, global chief executive of ONE, highlighted data that revealed that Shanghai was closed for eight days in August 2018 on the back of inclement weather. Further, between April and August 2018, there were 28 days when terminals were shutdown as a result of weather-related issues.

This, said Mr Nixon, is a growing concern for the industry because larger ships with much higher utilisation stunt the ability to recover lost time.

“Unfortunately, typhoons go straight through the middle of our shipping lanes creating disruption and impacting the ports themselves,” he said.

Addressing the issue of schedule reliability, which slipped significantly in 2018, Mr Nixon added that to get back to the days of 90% schedule reliability for the whole industry “is really a major challenge in light of where we are for terminal occupancy and where we are with the weather these days”.

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