EDITORIAL Specialist work
B
STEFAN VERBERCKMOES
ased on the statistics, conventional breakbulk transhipment seems to be a shrinking business. Considering the labour intensive nature of this traffi , this is not good news for the orts, es e iall ntwer as Europe’s largest breakbulk port. here are, however, two im ortant o servations to e made in this res e t he first is that a ortion of the traffi has moved from reak ulk terminals to warehouses or other terminals t is intriguing to see the kind of imaginative techniques that are being used to fa ilitate the stuffing or stri ing of ontainers with t i al reak ulk argo su h as long pipes or large steel plates. Much of the breakbulk cargo therefore has not disappeared, ut is now in luded in the ontainer statisti s his a lies in arti ular also for fruit traffi ontainer arriers eating into the argo of traditional reefer arriers is not ne essaril a ad thing n some ases the refrigerated ontainers are arried arge from the ontainer to the fruit terminal where the are dis harged for su se uent storage in a refrigerated warehouse his means that the argo is handled at two terminals, et it a ears onl as in the statisti s
“For a breakbulk port the focus is increasingly on handling costs� esides, it is not onl the ontainer arriers that want to load reak ulk argo on their not om letel filled vessels, e it out of gauge or not he ar arriers, too, for whi h the ar trans ort on some navigation routes is mainl a one wa traffi , are eager to fill their garage de ks with reak ulk on afi rom the outside, all ure ar and ru k arriers look alike, ut some are e ui ed on the inside with hoista le de ks and are s e iall designed to trans ort large roje t argo volumes se ond o servation in relation to the de line in onventional argo transhi ment is the fa t that om etition among the orts has in reased, as will e ome a arent in this reak ulk s e ial a h loss of a large ustomer has a dual e e t here is not onl the a tual loss of argo, ut also the o ortunit for the om etitor to rove itself and to a roa h other ustomers with a new referen e oreover, we should not lose sight of the situation in whi h man arriers find themselves he om etition with ontainer shi ing om anies and also dr ulk arriers is utting ressure on their in ome and for e them to ut osts in all areas or a reak ulk ort where a great deal of e ertise and highl skilled do k workers are resent, this means that the fo us is in reasingl on handling osts, whi h de end in art on the e i ilit with whi h the work in the ort is organised he e erien e of the do k workers remains, of ourse, a strong asset, e ause it remains s e ialist work he terminals, too, have egun to s e ialise and are investing also in new ranes and other e ui ment, making the ort stronger in the most literal sense of the word
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