Inclement weather delays at the Port of Cape Town, compounded by the state-owned port and rail operator’s recovery from wind disruption, have forced Maersk to make significant adjustments to its shipping schedules.
Over the past weekend, The Cape Independent reported that the Danish line had alerted customers to excessive waiting times at the port, with delays of eight to ten days becoming increasingly common.
Because of anchorage idling, Maersk has said the One Responsibility, a vessel operating on the SA-Europe Container Service (SAECS) in collaboration with Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express, will bypass Cape Town altogether.
Previously set to berth at port, the 7 098-TEU vessel will be heading to Durban.
Meanwhile, the One Resolution remains anchored off Cape Town after arriving on Sunday, while the Santa Isabel has been at anchorage since March 6.
It is understood that another vessel, the Santa Clara, is en route from Durban and expected to arrive soon, adding to the building backlog at the port.
Vessel tracking data reveals the ripple effects that delays at Cape Town are having on ships scheduled to call at the port.
On the India-Middle East-Africa Mesawa service, operated by Maersk and CMA CGM, vessels such as the Maersk Iyo have been rerouted to Ngqura to maintain schedule integrity.
Export bookings from Cape Town will be reassigned to the Maersk Cubango, while import containers from Ngqura will be redirected to their intended destinations.
The Cape Independent reported that, apart from being regularly windbound, port operations were being hindered by a combination of factors, including equipment failures and resource shortages.
The South African Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff) identified strong winds as the primary constraint last week, alongside ongoing dredging and logistical inefficiencies.
Between 3 and 9 March, the port handled 18 195 TEUs, but Saaff forecasts a 19% drop in throughput to 14 793 TEUs for the following week.
Criticism has mounted against Transnet, the state-owned operator of the Cape Town Container Terminal, for chronic underinvestment in South Africa’s logistics infrastructure. This neglect has left ports poorly equipped to handle growing demand or adapt to adverse conditions.
In last year’s Container Port Performance Index (CPPI), issued by the World Bank, the Port of Cape Town was listed as one of the worst-performing ports in the world, based on container-handling data.
But various stakeholders, from both the private and public sectors, including executives at Saaff, slated the CPPI for making apples-and-pears comparisons, with benchmark figures recorded by top-performing ports like Yangshan (China), Salalah (Oman) and Cartagena (Columbia).
However, in separate research conducted by Linerlytica, the ocean trade platform’s Port Congestion Watch found that Cape Town Container Terminal (CTCT) has a queue-to-berth ratio of 0.78, highlighting the systemic challenges facing South Africa’s maritime logistics sector.
