Container volume in and out of African ports is likely be unreliable until port infrastructure catches up with demand and investment is made in hinterland road and rail connections.
Speaking at the Cool Logistics Conference in Cape Town, Portoverview.com manager and co-owner Victor Shieh cautioned shipper of delays in the supply chain, noting 2,000 untoward incidents tracked by his website over 16 months.
Shieh said, whose site is co-owned by SeaIntel Maritime Analysis said that "We see African hinterland connections beyond the terminal gates as the biggest challenge facing shippers."
Shieh said that for shippers of perishables, reliability is a problem with containers arriving on-time at 60% to Asia, and slightly less at 55% for Europe.
Current projects to support cargo efficiency are on the African coast at Nigeria's Lekki's terminal with capacity of 2.5 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) and Tangier-Med, Morocco at five million TEU capacity.
Ro-ro traffic is less troubled by congestion or delays into African ports, said UK-based shipping agent Sutcliffe's Maritime director Helen Palmer.
She said that "I can't speak for box traffic but in the case of ro-ro into ports such as Mombasa, in East Africa, transit is extremely smooth with trucks waiting on the quayside as soon as the ship's ramp comes down. Dar es Salaam, is perhaps a little less straightforward but certainly nothing major."