Port of Cape Town earns global recognition amid setbacks
By Staff Writer
BAD weather, equipment failure, and shortages were blamed for “reduced productivity” at the Port of Cape Town for the year ending March 2025. This was despite the World Bank noting its improvements.
This decline followed hopes that a change in leadership – with the appointment of Michelle Phillips as Transnet Group CEO on 1 March 2024 – would turn things around at the rail and port monopoly.
Instead, the Cape Town Container Terminal (CTCT) achieved 28 container moves per working hour, below the target of 32 moves per hour.
The Port of Cape Town was not alone in underperforming, as the Port of Durban also failed to meet its targets. Transnet said that “imports, exports, and transshipments fell short of the budget by 3.5%, 4.4%, and 26.8% respectively.”
Transnet Port Terminals handled 4,092-million Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) containers, falling short of its annual budget target by 7%. The company said this reflected ongoing operational and market challenges.
It added that its Durban and Cape Town ports experienced operational challenges, including equipment shortages, logistical inefficiencies, and weather-related disruptions such asMaritime extreme weather and strong winds, which caused delays.
Despite the poor performance, the World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) report for 2020 to 2024 noted that the Port of Cape Town improved its score by nearly 240 points between 2023 and 2024, one of the strongest gains globally.
The CPPI report said Cape Town had invested in new cranes and equipment, upgraded warehousing capacity, and introduced innovative measures. These include hydraulic shore-tension units and a predictive wind model, developed with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to mitigate weather-related disruptions.
The report also pointed out that a helicopter piloting service had been launched to improve ship access during periods of high swells.
In spite of these improvements, the report noted that the Red Sea crisis placed “new demands on capacity and operational efficiency” on ports on the Cape of Good Hope route, at a time when many ports worldwide experienced deteriorating performance.
Aside from the Red Sea crisis, weather, and equipment issues, other ports in Africa were also starting to take market share. Transnet pointed out that there was increased competition from transshipment hubs in neighbouring countries.
Though the Port of Cape Town failed to achieve its performance targets, Transnet said it was committed to improving its performance. “Transnet will continue to develop capacity at the CTCT, targeting regional and European trade. This will include landside capacity and rail and truck staging,” it said.
The company said it was looking at developing various near-port terminals, including a potential cold storage-enabled container and refrigerated container facility at Belcon, its inland container terminal located about 24km from the Port of Cape Town. This possible development, along with a rail shuttle service to CTCT, would support port decongestion.
Aside from these developments, Transnet has also increased the number of cranes and employees deployed at the CTCT to mitigate the negative impact of recent windy weather conditions affecting terminal operations.
