'Shippers have become blind to transhipment'

THE OLD bugbear of transhipped sea cargo is no more, according to Nolene Lossau of the SA Shippers Council.
In the days of primarily breakbulk cargo, transhipping held the unfortunate promise of increased handling - and the resultantly greater risk of damage in this procedure.
But, said Lossau, your commodity has now become a container, carried in a bigger container in the form of the ship. Transhipping containers holds no such evils of increased damage.
Greater cost and transit timing are also no longer necessarily adverse factors in transhipment.
Indeed, said Lossau, with most major lines now using hub-and-spoke global systems, the economies of scale of hub transfer can often match - if not beat - direct transit rates.
With their frequency and routing through these hubs, it can also be just as quick as a direct shipment, she said.
Indeed, there is the hypothetical instance of a cargo bound for Charleston in the USA, say, being quicker in transit via hubs at the likes of Felixstowe or Algeciras than via alternative transhipment ports on the US east coast.
The only slow element nowadays, said Lossau, could be information movement - where the data could move slower than the cargo.
But this is only an irritation factor in the agent getting the information to the receivers.
Insurance is also no longer affected by transhipment of containers - where risk factors are recognised as being minimal, if at all.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) also no longer differentiates the transhipment mode, in its advice on credit related to sea cargo.
In the latest UCP 500 (uniform customs and practice for documentary credit) Article 23 of Section D - covering marine/ocean bills of lading - there is no differentiation, unless transhipment is particularly prohibited in the BoL.
Even if prohibited, transhipment is still acceptable under the ICC ruling - AS LONG as it is containerised.
The shipping industry is also now blind to any transhipments en-route, according to Lossau, provided the cargo arrives in the time-span the shipper sets for his consignment.
This time-definite element is a major part of a shipper's thinking now, she said, with the ship names and route of movement being irrelevant, as long as the cargo gets there safely and on-time.