Logistical Kaleidoscope

After the outbreak of the pandemic, in 2020, in a short period of time, freight rates increased many times and the timeliness of schedules dropped to 1/3. No other transport sector has seen such a scale of increases accompanied by a deterioration in service. Sudden cancellations and missed calls led to the disruption of US and European container terminals. Overburdened ports were unable to cope with handling land-based modes of transportation, exposing shippers to delays that resulted in, among other things, unaccountable demurrage and container detention fees. Paradoxically, container shipping became the main beneficiary of the pandemic perturbations. Horrendous freight rates were a source of unprecedented profits for the industry, which enabled shipowners to make acquisitions in the shipping and logistics and terminal markets, and ultimately realize the concept of an integrated logistics operator. Shipowners have effectively taken advantage of the EU Block Exemption Regulation for liner shipping consortia, which has been extended several times. The non-renewal of this regulation, which is in effect until 2024, is being requested by shipper and forwarder organizations seeking to balance the transportation market. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the political consequences have reversed the shipping market. The worsening tonnage surplus has led to a sharp drop in shipping rates and improved on-time delivery. Congestion at container terminals has been relieved, although they have not been able to return to the level of smooth service that we remember from the pre-COVID period.

North Sea ports and Baltic container terminals are similarly experiencing declines in transshipments as a result of the stagflation of their own economies and the stalling of international trade. Against this backdrop, the overall performance of our ports stands out positively. They more than compensated for the decline in container turnover with record transshipments of liquid fuels, gas, coal and grain, including Ukrainian agricultural crops. The war redirected parallel cargo streams to our ports, which, thanks to apt multi-year investments backed by EU funds, were able to meet the unexpected demand for transshipments. The most difficult current task is the handling of Ukrainian grain transit, whose transshipment volume at Black Sea ports was 5 times that of our ports before the war. Expansion of grain terminals for this transit would require targeted EU support and securing post-war transshipments with Ukraine, because after the war, Ukrainians will naturally return to the Black Sea with their grain, as it is cheaper for them and closer to their main markets.  The need to change the so-called energy mix does not make coal a cargo on which to build the future of our ports. Hence, when forecasting, current records should be approached with caution. In spite of the current setback, the managers of the container trade are looking ahead with optimism, with the expansion of the Baltic Hub, the deepening of the waterway and the widening of the turning basin in Gdynia, or the planning of a deep-water container terminal in Świnoujście, which causes the most emotion and conflicting opinions, the source of which is the perspective from which this project is evaluated and the costs of preparing the approach track. For the managers of the Szczecin-Świnoujście port complex, it is an opportunity to make a name for themselves in the deep-water container market and improve the relatively archaic cargo handling structure compared to Gdynia and Gdańsk. West Pomeranian logisticians will face a much more difficult cargo acquisition task due to inferior access to our industrialized interior and the difficult marketing of German cargo facilities. Świnoujście’s unquestionable advantage is the shorter engagement of an ocean-going vessel in the Baltic and the attractiveness of so-called sea transit services. Gdańsk and Gdynia warn of the risk of cannibalization, devastating competition and, as a result, overinvestment in cargo handling infrastructure. Forwarders, like shippers, look favorably on Świnoujście, because it’s an additional supply option, and they fear nothing more than one legitimate transportation solution.
In its own way, the geographically closest hub to us, which is the port of Hamburg, is facing a cargo shortage. After overcoming the major hurdles of deepening the access waterway, an attempt was made to have an ownership tie-up with a Chinese shipowner by selling it a share in one of the container terminals. This caused a lot of controversy also in the government forum, as the war turmoil lowered confidence in Chinese investors. It ended with a compromise of reduced shares and rights. It is likely that similar arguments determined the fate of the recent tender for BCT, where even before the war a determined Chinese investor in charge of its terminal next door seemed the undisputed favorite. In the end, the BCT, which is crucial to the supply of U.S. armaments, remained in Philippine hands. Another interesting case is MSC’s recent bid to acquire almost half of HHLA. On the one hand, this confirms the post-pandemic acquisition capabilities of shipowners, on the other, it shows the patriotic intensification of a part of the Hamburg community, familiar to us from our own backyard, only differently oriented.

Article developed with Namiary na Morze i Handel magazine

phot. Namiary na Morze i Handel magazine