Could Durban port expansion follow CT’s example to avoid ‘green’ obstacles?

TRANSNET’S DECISION
to look for other ways of
increasing Cape Town’s
container terminal (CTCT)
capacity may have a side
effect – that of examining
other alternatives at Durban.
Faced with impassable
environmental issues once
environment minister threw
out the initial proposal to
widen CTCT into Table Bay,
Transnet has instead opted
for making better use of
existing land and improved
productivity (FTW September
28, 2007). It is this course
of action that may now rub
off on Durban, where not
dissimilar environmental issues
are at stake.
With an environmental
impact assessment (EIA) about
to get under way at Durban
for a new container basin
in the Bayhead area of the
harbour, alternate methods
of providing urgently needed
capacity will also come under
scrutiny. One of the issues
so far ignored for DCT has
been that of converting it to
a rubber tyre gantry (RTG)
operation and looking for
vertical expansion, instead
of constantly adding more
geography to the equation.
Minister Marthinus
van Schalkwyk’s Record of
Decision for Cape Town has
effectively changed all that.
Creating an RTG operation
at CTCT and ‘maximising
existing infrastructure and
buildings’ makes this the third
South African terminal to
introduce what the rest of the
world has long known – that
an RTG operation provides
better utilisation of space than
straddle carriers.
The other two terminals
are Durban’s Pier 1 Container
Terminal, due for completion
later this year, and Ngqura
which has yet to open.
An RTG type operation
permits the stacking of boxes
up to 7-high, compared with
2 or 3- high with straddle
carriers. This was something
pointed out in the late
1990s by a delegation from
Hutchison Port Terminals that
said if they were granted a
concession to operate DCT the
first thing they’d do would be
to convert to RTGs. Hutchison
made a point of how much
space was available at DCT and
how badly it was being utilised
because of the straddle carrier
operation.
DCT faces similar obstacles
to that of CTCT (and Pier 1)
– the stacking area was not
constructed for high stacking
of boxes and would have to
be strengthened but Pier 1
has already shown this can be
done.
It will be surprising if this
does not become an issue with
the forthcoming Durban EIA.