Australia: Australian National Line (ANL) has criticised the federal government's management of the country's ports after operations at the DP World facility in Sydney's Port Botany ground to a halt last week.
"The turmoil in Sydney is just another example of governments failing to listen to shipping lines until it is too late," said John Lines, Managing Director of ANL Container Line.
Last week DP World had to close its terminal for a 24-hour period to clear out the boxes, which had congested the terminal to the point where nothing could be moved.
Ships operating on tight fixed day schedules had to wait alongside the berth or at anchor.
"Our vessels can cost around AU$25,000 per day (US$24,868) and we have to let them sit idle. This is completely unacceptable. Where do we recover this cost from and the AU$20-30,000 (US$19.8-29,840) per day in extra fuel we incur speeding vessels up to regain time? What about the extra costs in the whole supply chain this brings about?" added Lines.
There are growing concerns within the sector, with many considering what happened in Sydney as a symptom of poor and locally focused infrastructure planning.
"It is time for those responsible for land-side infrastructure and operations to improve their game. It is not rocket science to know that when trade continues to expand year after year, and terminal space is static or contracts, eventually the bottleneck which develops will stop everything. And this week in Sydney it did," he said.