26 BULKDISTRIBUTOR
Logistics
May/June 2016
Which way to Munich?
A
recently published whitepaper* from Drewry’s Supply
Chain Advisors looking at the ‘best routes’ for
containerised imports into South Germany from China found
that for some shippers using Mediterranean gateway ports is
a viable alternative to the traditional North-West Europe
gateways.
To establish shippers’ best-route Drewry examined a variety of
routes to find the best mix of cost, transit time and the number of
service options.
Drewry equated South Germany to two Bundesländer – BadenWürttemberg and Bavaria. These länder have a combined population
of 23.5 million and contain several logistics clusters with activities in
the automotive (Daimler, Audi, Porsche, BMW), mechanical and
electrical engineering (Bosch, Siemens), and chemical industries.
Firstly, the whitepaper looked at the number of maritime services
from Shanghai to South Germany’s so-called northern and southern
gateways that were available to the market as of March 2016. Here
it was found that there were far more weekly connections to the
two major northern gateways of Rotterdam and Hamburg, but while
southern ports had fewer services they had the advantage of faster
transit times, by virtue of their closer proximity to Shanghai.
The paper then looked at the intermodal connections between
those gateway ports and five logistics clusters in South Germany.
The cheapest option for shippers was via Rotterdam and Hamburg,
Which is the best port to serve Munich? Hamburg (left) or Koper (right)?
but only by a margin of US$150 and $100, respectively, against
Koper in Slovenia, which has a three-day transit time advantage. As
such, Drewry believes Shanghai-to-Munich via Koper is a true ‘best
route’ contender for shippers with time sensitive cargoes.
There are other reasons why Drewry thinks the southern gateways
will become more competitive. First, the ocean freight rate
differential for cargoes from Asia to North and South European ports
is changing; the former has traditionally been cheapest, but in the
fourth quarter 2015 the World Container Index reported that exShanghai rates to the Mediterranean were lower than to North
Europe in 10 out of 14 weeks.
Second, several South European intermodal operators are
developing exciting and competitive concepts. These efforts will be
boosted with the opening Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) between Italy
and Switzerland. The GBT will be the world’s longest traffic tunnel
and will allow rail operators to improve their efficiency by increasing
the length of trains and reducing travel time when crossing the Alps.
Once this translates into cheaper rail rates, the area where the
southern gateways can compete will expand further north.
Away from Munich, however, the picture is more mixed. For the
Freiburg/Lörrach logistics cluster, only the northern ports offer
competitive connections; likewise for the Stuttgart/Heilbronn region.
Coincidentally, Port of Rotterdam commissioned research firm
Panteia to look into the sustainability of shipping containers to
Southern Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland.
That research found that using North European ports was not only
cheaper, but had a lower environmental footprint than via South
European ports.
Welcoming the conclusions Port of Rotterdam Authority CEO
Allard Castelein said: “The Northern European ports perform well
because many large container vessels call here an d much of the
hinterland transport is done by inland shipping and rail. This provides
for a relatively small ecological footprint, even though the route is
longer.”
According to the study, daily emissions of a 20,000 TEU vessel, as
measured per container, are far lower than those of a 10,000 TEU
vessel. The difference in CO2 emissions can be as high as 50
percent, it states. These large vessels call relatively more frequently at
the big North European ports than at their smaller southern peers,
because more goods are shipped to and from this region.
The use of LNG as a transport fuel in logistics also has a positive
effect mainly on inland shipping and coastal shipping. This makes
logistics chains more sustainable via ports which have a large
percentage of their hinterland transport organised by barges and
coastal shipping, which, of course, includes Rotterdam.
*A ‘best-route’ market study for containerised imports to South
Germany.
www.drewry.co.uk