Transnet ramps up Cape Town port preparations for fruit export season
· Citizen
The Department of Transport and state freight utility Transnet are shifting from isolated operational fixes to a full value-chain governance model to prevent severe export bottlenecks at the Port of Cape Town during the upcoming deciduous fruit season.
Following heavy losses last season, where extreme weather conditions severely constrained loading windows, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has detailed a major structural shift proposed by industry agents and shipping lines: expanding port “war rooms” beyond Transnet’s internal operations to encompass all private supply chain players.
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During November and December of the previous season, the Port of Cape Town experienced 32 days with wind speeds exceeding 100km/h, which prevented fruit loading every second day despite R2 billion in capital expenditure on new equipment.
The core operational failure occurred when calm weather windows opened – insufficient dock labour was available to make up for lost time.
Labour and rail capacity restructuring
To maximise throughput during brief operational windows, Transnet is implementing key labour and infrastructure measures.
These include:
- Leave schedule reorganisation – Western Cape stevedores will no longer take leave during the intensive export season;
- Inter-port workforce support – Auxiliary stevedores are being brought in from Durban and Gqeberha to operate all berths simultaneously when the wind dies down; and
- Belcon rail scaling – Transnet is increasing train movements from its Belcon back-of-port facility from one or two trains to five concurrent trains; with the capacity to carry up to 100 containers per train, the expanded rail throughput is designed to reduce truck congestion at port gates.
Highlighting the operational imperative while speaking to Moneyweb@Midday host Jeremy Maggs, Creecy stated:
“The key issue is when the wind stopped. Can you get all hands on deck immediately?
“Because you may only have five or six hours in which to load up a ship before the wind starts again, and what we found was that we didn’t have sufficient labour available in the docks. And this year we have reorganised the leave schedule so that those stevedores [who] are working in the Western Cape don’t take leave during the intensive season.
“But what we are also doing is we are bringing in stevedores from Durban and also from the port of Gqeberha so that when the wind stops, we can operate every berth in the dock.”
“As far as I’m concerned, climate change is a fact of life. So we have to accept that we are likely to have severe wind, and we can’t be using that as an excuse for not performing,” she said.
“What we have to do is to develop our operating systems to such a point that we can operate even if there is extreme wind, and when that wind dies, we must be ready to roll.”
Port ‘community’
Addressing the broader logistics network, private freight agents and shipping lines requested the establishment of a “port community of practice”.
Rather than focusing strictly on Transnet assets, the new framework establishes a joint operational war room to manage data visibility and performance across producers, agents, storage facilities, and carriers.
During August and September, stakeholders are finalising baseline information-sharing protocols among competing commercial players, with long-term plans to deploy an AI-backed IT system across the value chain.
Detailing the transition away from an internal focus, Creecy said what interested her was that stakeholders said not everything was within Transnet’s purview, and that in modern ports there is a community of port systems.
“They were saying to us ‘Your war rooms are fine, but your war rooms are focused on Transnet itself’,” she said.
“Now we need to [set] up a war room that [deals] with the whole value chain. And everybody in that value chain has to be accountable.
“What we are working on during August and September is what information we need in order [for] the value chain [to] function effectively.
“And how will [commercial players], who normally [compete] with each other, cooperate on this baseline information so that we get better productivity?
“Of course, in the long term, we want to put in an IT system to handle this. But while we are developing that system, we’ve got to be using human beings.”
This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.