| Sydney Empty Container Management:
Transporters Face Significant Additional Costs / Reconsider Container Detention Policies Added Costs:
A reduction in empty container park capacity, larger volumes of containers being handled, and a high level of import empty container "re-directions" by shipping lines, are causing significant additional empty container handling costs in Sydney.
CTAA has observed that the empty container management situation in Sydney has been getting progressively worse over a number of months now. For many container transport operators it has reached the stage where they cannot fully absorb the additional costs.
A conservative estimate is that the added costs of managing empty containers in Sydney being borne by transport operators are between $90 to $200 per container, depending on the level of delay and additional handling necessary.
Empty Re-Directions - 24 Hours Notice Required:
A significant contributor to the higher costs are the number and frequency of empty container "re-directions" which are ordered at the discretion of the shipping lines with little notice.
Port Botany is Australia's empty container "Re-Direction Capital", with over 30 re-direction notices current every day, equating to hundreds of re-directions per month. By contrast, this is more than double the number of re-directions in Melbourne.
Empty containers destined for one ECP, or for direct wharf de-hire, are suddenly re-directed to another location, causing significant planning difficulties for transport operators who must adjust their fleet and job allocations last minute.
Worse, trucks with valid Empty Container Park (ECP) arrival notifications are being turned away because a re-direction has been ordered. This causes futile truck trips and vastly inflated costs / further delays which are totally unacceptable to transport operators.
CTAA is calling on all shipping lines and their ECP providers to give at least 24 hours' notice of any empty container re-directions, as well as a clear end-date for the re-direction.
Unrealistic Container Detention Timeframes & Claims:
Container detention time restrictions are more likely to be exceeded as a result of the current empty container management delays and inefficiencies in Sydney, but there is little incentive for shipping lines to extend container detention "free time" to importers.
Many transport operators apply business rules with their importer / forwarder customers requiring adequate business-day notification that import containers are ready for empty de-hire.
In addition however, transport companies are increasingly unwilling to accept container detention claims liability passed to them by their customers when the delays in de-hire are outside of their control. This is a matter for negotiation between transport operators and their direct customers.
In the current circumstances in Sydney, it is not unrealistic for import containers to be taking more than 15 to 20 days from the date of discharge to be able to be returned empty. Container detention claims prior to that are equally unrealistic.
It is even more imperative therefore that when delays threaten a breach of the shipping lines' imposed container detention policies, importers and forwarders – the customers of the shipping lines - should be proactive in: - Seeking an extension of the "free time" from the shipping line for the return of the empty container; and/or
- Requesting that the shipping line allow the container to be de-hired into an ECP or wharf facility with more flexible de-hire arrangements and longer opening hours.
Importers, forwarders and their transport providers should be more proactive in convincing shipping lines that they will direct empty de-hires to facilities that are more flexible and are open longer hours, instead of suffering delays in trying to de-hire to nominated facilities that are congested or have limited opening hours.
CTAA Alliance companies are discussing the current delays and inefficiencies with the ECPs in Sydney, Shipping Lines, NSW Ports, Transport for NSW and the NSW Government. |