Further deepening of the Elbe River urgently needed to accommodate new generation of mega-boxships. Europe’s “Gateway to Asia“, as Hamburg Port touts itself, was hit last year by the downturn in traffic to and from Russia, resulting from the structural weakness of the Russian economy and the sanctions slapped against that country over the Ukraine crisis; however, the port’s traffic with Asia, particularly China, continues to be as robust as before.
Nevertheless, Hamburg Port made a recovery in the first quarter of 2015, handling a total of 35.6 million tons of cargo (+0.1%) in the first three months of the year, even though the general cargo volume declined slightly to 23.9 million tons (-4.9%). The bulk cargo, on the other hand, surged to 11.7 millions (+12.3%) over the year-earlier quarter. “We are satisfied with the overall growth in the sea-cargo throughput. It is, so far, the best first quarter result achieved in the port’s history,” Axel Mattern, Hamburg Port’s chief executive officer (marketing), claimed in an interview with the AJOT. But the container throughput at 2.3 million TEUs (-2.3%) in the first 2015 quarter, remained below the 2014 first-quarter period when the port posted a strong 8% growth. The decline in the 2015 first quarter is attributed, primarily, to the sharp drop in the Russia container traffic which fell 34.8% down to 109,000 TEUs. Hamburg handled some 660,000 containers, inbound and outbound, with Russia in 2014 (-8% compared to 2013). However, Asia helped offset Hamburg’s drastic decline in the 2014 Russia traffic. The number of containers arriving from China, Hamburg Port’s biggest market, surged at Europe’s second biggest container port after Rotterdam. Russia, which was Hamburg Port’s second biggest market, was ousted from its ranking to number three in 2015 first quarter, with Singapore taking the second position. While Hamburg Port handled 9.73 million TEUs in 2014, experts say the port will cross the 10 million TEU mark this year. Ingo Egleff, a co-chairman at Hamburg Port, had stated at the annual press conference in Hamburg that he did not expect Russia’s economic situation to brighten up in the coming months, with a weak rouble drastically reducing exports to Russia. Hamburger Hafen-und Logistik AG (HHLA), the port company, which has its own operational site in the Ukraine port of Odessa, was also affected by this conflict. German experts say that Hamburg Port, in addition to its well-established business in China, will try aggressively to penetrate into other countries of Asia; some of the countries that are on the port’s include India, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia. The presence of Asian visitors at Hamburg Port’s huge pavilion at the recent Transport/Logistics 2015 fair in Munich, the world’s largest logistics show, is an indication of the port’s growing interaction with Asian countries. Port of Hamburg Needs Elbe River Deepened But increasing future traffic with Asia will also depend on the port’s ability to accommodate the new generation of large vessels increasingly used in international shipping lanes. The current depth of the Elbe River would make access difficult for the latest generation of the gigantic vessels that ferry across oceans these days. The river-deepening project, from the terminal operator’s perspective, is particularly important because container ships are being produced today in far larger sizes than in the past. Such ships find it difficult to navigate through the present depth of the Elbe River; according to the port’s marketing organization, about 180 large-size ships, each accommodating more than 13,300 containers, called at Hamburg Port in 2014. That was more than twice as many as in the previous year. Indeed, the number of these mega-ships is expected to further increase, considering that the deployment of such juggernauts results in significant cost savings: the calculation is that transportation costs for each container are reduced for the shipping line by loading more containers on a ship. For Hamburg Port, there is an urgency in resolving the issue of deepening the Elbe. “The project is currently being heard in the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig which will give its judgment after the European Court of Justice delivers its ruling, probably, by August this year,“ Mattern said. Hamburg has, of course, been receiving ships of larger sizes, including the ocean giants such as the CSCL Globe and the CSCL Pacific Ocean. These two mega-boxships, rise in the number of ships with 1 whose size is about 400 meters in length, called at Hamburg Port a few months back. Indeed, the port experienced a 112% 3,300 container capacity. For Hamburg, the future reality is that while the number of medium-sized ships continues to decline, the number of large ships with a five-digit container capacity has been rising. The increase is particularly discernible on the North Europe-Asia routes where the large-sized ships are increasingly deployed, with experts predicting ships will have 20,000 container capacity. These experts have also been closely monitoring neighbouring Jade-Weser-Port which received in March the largest ship, MSC Oscar, with a 19,224 container capacity. The ship is “as large as four football fields,” according to one Hamburg based expert. Such giant ships are expected to be deployed soon in traffic with China. Environmentalists fiercely oppose the Port of Hamburg’s efforts to deepen the Elbe. While the MSC Oscar could easily sail from German ports to Rotterdam and thence to Asia, the CSCL Globe, in comparison, experienced considerable delay in its sailing schedule because the ship had difficulties sailing to Hamburg. Chinese experts, familiar with the situation in Hamburg, have been predicting that all the big shipping lines operating to Asia will deploy such large ships in three to five years from now. Hamburg Port also faces competition from rival Rotterdam which has established a strong foothold in Asia. Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, could increase its 2014 throughput by 6% to 12 million TEUs. Nevertheless, both ports have maintained more or less the same level of container traffic with the Far East, with each having about three million containers to and from China.