Not a good situation at Thamesport
This smaller part of Hutchison Ports (UK) Ltd is faced with a reduction in throughput
Thamesport will soon have no more deep sea callers. First, Evergreen - the facility's first deep sea customer - recently consolidated all its services in Felixstowe, having switched its NE3 China Europe Shuttle service (CES) and its NE2 China-Europe-Mediterranean service (CEM).
The second heavy blow was the announcement that Hapag Lloyd, as part of its Grand Alliance tie-up with NYK and OOCL, will move its North America-Europe Gulf Atlantic Express (GAX) and Gulf Mexico Express (GMX) services, and its Latin America/North America-Europe Pacific Atlantic Express (PAX) service to Southampton in October. Hapag-Lloyd, along with partners Zim Line and Mitsui OSK Lines, already dropped Thamesport from the Africa-Europe WAX/NAF/ARN service in July. This now calls only at Antwerp and Hamburg in Europe.
This will leave Thamesport with no deep sea lines and only two shipping lines to service on a regular basis, both of which are short sea/coastal operators, BG Lines and MacAndrews. The latter operator, part of CMA CGM, has switched its ScanBaltic service from Tilbury to Thamesport, where it claims it receives better service levels.
In the last week of August/first week of September, Thamesport is scheduled to handle 13 ships, with seven of these being the Hapag Lloyd trans-Atlantic calls. Of the other six calls, four are by short sea vessels of MacAndrews and two are from BG Line.
The 655m quay, served by seven cranes, can be extended to a maximum of length of just 750m due to the proximity of a gas-fired power station to the east and a BP bitumen tanker jetty to the west, although there is outline planning permission for 500,000 m3 of extra warehousing. There are two 62.5m outreach (22-wide) cranes from ZPMC delivered in 2010, but the other five STS cranes and the automated RMGs, all supplied by defunct manufacturers, are over 20 years old and in need of refurbishment. Given the degree of investment required to win new business, plus increased local competition in the form of London Gateway – a new facility with a reputation to build - HPH faces a major challenge.
The site could possibly be employed as a maintenance base for Thames Estuary wind turbines, or for leisure use as a marina, although this would be an expensive project. There may be some potential for a ro-ro terminal, but the major Thames operator, Cobelfret, currently has sufficient capacity, with its terminals also nearer main motorway connections. P&O Ferries currently uses an inside berth at Tilbury, but as this is a twice daily service, a move to Thamesport would not be financially attractive, particularly as Tilbury has better access to motorway links than Thamesport.
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