Page 26 - Sphere No.7 (Oct 2002)

C O V E R S T O R Y
SPHERE
1224
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
If real estate is all about “location, location, location” so, too, is
the container shipping industry. Time is money. If trunk
routes can be shortened, or ports of call reduced, so can
costs.The way it works is that large mother vessels call at major
ports, picking up and dropping off bulk containers along a
given (trunk) route, and then turning around at the end of
each voyage to complete a never-ending loop.
Due to their sheer size, mother vessels can only berth at
certain hub ports. They are also expensive to dock, load
and unload. For this reason, smaller feeder vessels ply
transhipment cargo from other ports – sometimes from
other countries – to each main hub. There it is stored (along
with domestic cargo) until a mother vessel arrives to collect
it – or drop off transhipment cargo going in the opposite
direction.
Finding the most efficient way to transport containers and
other goods is all about logistics. But just what gets shipped to
where depends on ever-shifting global trends. Whilst Hong
Kong’s combined sea cargo fell 2% last year, and Singapore
slipped more than 10%, Pusan quietly posted 3.5% growth to
bump off Taiwan’s Kaoshiang as the third-busiest container port
in the world.
In the first half of this year, combined cargo-handling by
South Korean ports shot up 12.9% and is expected to top 10
millionTEUs by the end of the year.This figure represents a 43%
surge in container handling for Kwangyang to 517,594 TEUs, a
15.4% rise for Incheon to 355,000 TEUs, and an 8.5% rise for
Pusan to 4,273,000 TEUs for the first half year.
GOVERNMENT POLICY
So why the sudden swing to South Korea? Apart from the gov-
HUTCHISON PORT TIMELINE (KOREA)
December 1986
Kwangyang Port officially
opens.
December 1987
Civil works begin on
Kwangyang Container
Terminal Phase 1.
September 1996
Civil works begin on
Kwangyang Phase 2-1.
December 1997
Civil works completed for
Kwangyang Phase 1 at an
estimated cost of US$340
million to the Korean
Government.
July 1998
Kwangyang Phase 1 officially
opens with 4 x 350m deep-
water berths totalling 1.4km.
May 2001
Korea International Terminals
(KIT), a consortium compris-
ing Hutchison Port Holdings,
Hyundai Merchant Marine,
and Hanjin Shipping, is grant-
ed the rights to operate and
develop seven berths at
Kwangyang Phases 2-1 and
2-2.
December 2001
Civil works completed for
Kwangyang Phase 2-1 at an
estimated cost of US$280
million to the Korean
Government.
January 2002
Hutchison Port Holdings
secures three existing con-
tainer terminals from
Hyundai Merchant Marine.
Hutchison Korea Terminals
(HKT) becomes the holding
company for: Hutchison
Busan Container Terminal
(HBCT), Korea's busiest con-
tainer terminal with over five
berths (1,460m total) in
2001; Hutchison Gamman
Container Terminal (HGCT),
a single 350m berth located
in Busan; and Hutchison
Kwangyang Container
Terminal (HKCT), a single
350m berth located at
Kwangyang Phase 1.
This gives HKT seven berths
(A glance at HPH’s container terminal acquisitions and operations in Korea.)