Congestion at the berth side of the new MPS Terminal 3 has caused vessels to be “locked up” at anchorage, a situation that poses huge losses to shipping agents and vessel owners.
According to sources, vessels turnaround time—which is the ability of a vessel to berth, discharge/upload cargo and turn back to sea for other vessels at anchorage to berth—has shot up from the three-day average to between nine-to-10 days.
A vessel named MV Spyros on voyage WAS25N19 which docked at anchorage on July 23, was able to berth on August 2, 2019—nine days clear.
CMA CGM LAPIS, another vessel on voyage WAS26N19, which got to anchorage on July 25 was expected to berth on August 4, 2019.
The shipping lines say they are worried about the situation as it is having dire financial consequences on the operations.
They have also questioned why MPS would vacate Terminal 2 in a rush, well in the know that there will be teething problems at the new facility.
A vessel with 30,000 GRT pays US$20,000 per day at anchorage; this means for such a vessel to be held for nine days, the vessel owner will have to cough up about US$180,000 in addition to berthing cost.
“These costs are waste since it is out of pocket and could have been saved. I can’t charge the client or the consignee or even the merchant.
We are engaging with the port authorities on the issue but it’s more of a lost battle because there is no communication coming from their end,” an aggrieved vessel owner said in an interview.
He added: “This is the cost that we are building up at the port; what this means is that in the next cycle freight, the freight will have to go up and the ultimate loser will be the consumer.”
Aside cost implications, the source said the delays at anchorage will have some spillover effect at the next point of call for the vessels including delays in the delivery of consignments.
“Hitherto, we were spending an average of 36 hours at Terminal 2, but now it is getting to about 96 hours for same volumes at the Terminal 3, and that is even when the vessel is in port under operations.”
He added: “We were expecting these teething challenges but it is going beyond that. I have a berthing window in Abidjan which exports more reefer containers so if my vessel sits at anchorage for nine days, I have lost that window.”
The Shipowners and Agents Association of Ghana (SOAAG), reacting to the concerns of its members, has attributed the current situation to the poor coordination and cooperation among key port stakeholders.
“I don’t think the parties are playing their cards well; both GPHA and MPS. It will take about three months before this could settle and it is not the best for the industry at the moment.
We all knew that there were going to be some teething challenges but if all the parties were brought together to discusses these operational issues, some of these things could have been tallied down,” said Adam Imoro Ayarna, Vice President of SOAAG.
He was particularly worried about the fact that the shipping business is close to its peak season as the situation could be worsened if the appropriate measures are not in place to tackle the teething challenges at the new terminal.
“Three months from now, we are heading into the peak season so you can imagine the challenges it will bring to the shipping business,” he noted.