The Saldanha Multi-Purpose Terminal (MPT) has recorded an annual cargo handling volume increase of 6.2% less than a month before the end of its 2023/24 financial year.
The terminal, which handles various export commodities, including bulk and breakbulk, announced on Thursday that it had also exceeded budgeted volumes by 9% in February, compared with a 3% decrease recorded over the same period in 2023.
“Being a multi-purpose terminal means we are dynamic in our approach, and it is often required that our planning is adaptable in order to fulfil our performance obligations,” said Western Cape Region acting managing executive Oscar Borchards.
“Optimisation through several initiatives, which the Saldanha MPT embarked on this financial year (2023/24), contributed to improved performance on vessel stay/turnaround time, from an average of five to three days on some vessels.”
Borchards said initiatives included extending utilisation of critical equipment, such as the mobile ship loader.
“Saldanha MPT currently uses a hybrid loading method that deploys a mobile ship loader which is semi-automated and has been proven to work faster, together with skip operations, which are manual and compatible to the terminal’s operations,” said Borchards.
“We have had to tap into the expertise of our industrial engineers who conducted time studies, which provided us with a solution on how we can shorten our loading time. While the solution currently works better on some vessels, depending on the type of commodity, it is our endeavour to continuously seek opportunities to improve our performance holistically.”
He said one of Saldanha’s MPT’s priorities was to continuously engage all stakeholders to ensure alignment.
“Our main objective is to deliver on our promise, therefore it is critical that we are inclusive and in close collaboration with our customers.”
