Rival Ports row in the Telegraph .
http://www.felixstowenews.tv
The boss of Felixstowe, Britain’s biggest container port, has played down the competitive threat from the new London Gateway terminal, dismissing its ability to transform company supply chains.
Clemence Cheng, managing director central Europe for Felixstowe-owner Hutchison Port Holdings, said he was ready for the new competition from DP World’s £1.5bn port in the Thames Estuary but doubted it would be the “game-changer” some have claimed.
London Gateway chief executive Simon Moore has said the new port and adjacent business park, due to open by the end of next year, would allow companies “to completely re-evaluate their supply chains” by bringing the world’s biggest ships as close as possible to the capital.
However, Mr Cheng said he believed advantages in proximity to London were offset by up to “six hours extra sailing time in both directions” from the main east coast pilot station used by shipping lines and the port’s distance from Britain’s main distribution centres in the Midlands and the north. “They call it a game-changer. But the logistics industry has been built up over years. I don’t think it wants to change,” he said.
Felixstowe currently handles more than 40pc of Britain’s containerised traffic or just under 3.5m TEU – 20ft equivalent units, in the industry jargon.
“It’s not for me to say whether the new port will work,” Mr Cheng said. “But while London has got 8m people, the other major centres you want to reach like Birmingham and Manchester are to the north. There’s also the issue of repositioning containers because when you bring a box in you want to take it out full. You need to capture some sort of export cargo.”
He said that would involve London-bound containers from the new port being sent to the more northerly distribution hubs to be refilled with goods for export, with such “triangulation” adding costs and time.
However, Mr Moore hit back this weekend, insisting London Gateway was closer to “the Midlands, the Manchester area, and the South East, which means trucking costs will be lower to these destinations”. He said that would “save importers and exporters £100, on average, off the cost of trucking a container to and from the port.”
He also disputed the extra sailing time was as much as six hours. “While ships calling at London Gateway will travel up to an additional two hours towards the country’s largest consumer market, they will be turned around faster,” he said.
DP World sells stake in Russian firm for $230 million
The deal is the latest in a series of disposals of non-core assets by DP World. The company sold non-core operations in Belgium and quit a venture in Yemen in September.
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