A LACK of rail freight connections threatens to relegate Melbourne to No 2 and elevate Sydney as Australia's biggest container port, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Experts are predicting the demise of port of Melbourne on account of container operators abandoning projects and shifting their focus across the border because of the lack of rail connections, said the report.
"We are already seeing the growth rates of containers through port Botany exceeding Melbourne," said Qube Logistics managing director Maurice James. "It's at risk of losing its No 1 container port status because of the economics of moving freight and the potential cost of going forward."
The Port of Melbourne handles 2.5 million TEU annually, but Sydney has nearly caught up, with throughput now at 2.3 million TEU.
Qube has abandoned corporate partnerships with Salta Properties and Austrak in Melbourne because it says Victoria has no strategy to get metropolitan freight onto rail and develop suburban intermodal terminals.
Instead, the company plans to concentrate on developing the Moorebank rail freight precinct in south-west Sydney with rail group Aurizon, a facility that the logistics firm is confident will grow into the biggest intermodal freight hub in Australia.
Mr James said one big customer in the Riverina has already shifted its freight to Qube's regional train to Sydney, not Melbourne.
"Melbourne has stagnated. We have not seen a serious government push for modal shift to rail," Mr James said. "We are not wasting any more time on that in Melbourne."
The port of Botany, which has a dedicated standard gauge freight line, handles 2.2 million TEU to 2.3 million TEU annually, but has the infrastructure that could take it to seven or nine million TEU, similar to Melbourne's estimated capacity of eight million TEU.
The Sydney Intermodal Terminal Alliance (SIMTA), which is 67 per cent owned by Qube and Aurizon with 33 per cent, will spend A$1.5 billion (US$1.1 billion) developing the 240-hectare Moorebank over the next decade. "Our master plan is to put in 850,000 square metres of warehouse, an import and export rail terminal, and an interstate rail terminal, handling a total of 1.5 million TEU," Mr James said.
He expects road costs to increase through government fuel imposts, road user charging mechanisms and higher tollway charges. "Road congestion will become a bigger issue. That's where we are in Melbourne with road congestion," he said.
In Melbourne, Mr James said rail terminals should be built on dock and the stevedores should load trains at the same price they load trucks, as basically happens in Sydney. Otherwise, "you will put an additional cost into the intermodal business, and therefore it won't be economic."
The chief strategy officer at DP World, Brian Gillespie, said Sydney congestion was at a different level from Melbourne, hence the joint venture with Toll.
The company was open to developing metro intermodal in Melbourne, "but we have no tangible plan in place at this point," he said. "Metro intermodal will come - it's a question of gravity."
Mr Gillespie said DP World's biggest obstacle to on-dock rail was Coode Road, a public road that bisects the company's two terminals - the quay side at West Swanson dock, and the rail connection on the other side of the road.
PORTS
22 August 2015 - 09:12
Lacking rail, Melbourne to be surpassed by Sydney as biggest box port
A LACK of rail freight connections threatens to relegate Melbourne to No 2 and elevate Sydney as Australia's biggest container port, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
PORTS
22 August 2015 - 09:12
Lacking rail, Melbourne to be surpassed by Sydney as biggest box port
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