Shippers annoyed about extra charges for port congestion
On April 5, OEL Bangladesh, a container vessel, arrived at the outer anchorage of Chattogram port bearing a variety of import goods, including recycleables for the essential garment industry.
But because of the acute container congestion at the port yard, brought on by the countrywide movement control enforced on March 26 to flatten the curve on coronavirus, the vessel had to stay there for 10 days before getting any berth.
The vessel had to remain an additional trip to the port jetty for the sluggish pace of discharging the import containers.
This means it took the vessel 25 days instead of the 2 weeks it usually takes for the round trip from Chattogram to Colombo.
Therefore, the ship missed another voyage in one month as it could operate two trips monthly, said Muntasir Rubayat, assistant vice-president of GBX Logistics, the neighborhood shipping agent of OEL Bangladesh.
For such additional stays, the vessel operator had to count extra duties amounting to a lot more than $100,000 in chartering cost, bunkering cost and the berth occupancy charge at the port, he said.
The container shipping sector, the integral area of the country's import and export activities, has been passing through crisis since the start of the year because of the import slowdown due to the coronavirus outbreak in China, the global supplier of raw materials and finished goods alike.
Now, the sector has been receiving further blows for retraction of export cargo for the united states and the EU and the container congestion at the Chattogram due to the countrywide shutdown going back four weeks.
Many feeder operators had recently been forced to cancel weekly voyages of some of their vessels in the last couple of months.
Vessels' waiting time at the outer anchorage has reached 15 to 16 days since the Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) isn't allowing vessels to acquire a berth on time because of the space shortage for storing imports.
Another vessel, OEL Shasta, arrived at the outer anchorage on April 10. The CPA yesterday said the vessel would not get a berth before April 26.
For the 16 days of idle stay, the vessel operator must count around $160,000 as chartering and bunkering costs, said Md Zakirul Islam, deputy manager of Karnaphuly, the neighborhood shipping agent of the vessel.
"If a vessel spends 20 days at Chattogram Port, how will a shipping line survive?" said Ajmir Hossain Chowdhury, assistant general manager of MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company.
The delay prompted the Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association (BSAA) on Monday to create to the shipping secretary, requesting him to examine several port charges and tariffs to save lots of shipping companies from huge losses.
The charges include pilotage fees, berth hire charge, quay gantry crane charge, storage charge for empty containers and storage rent for containers at Kamalapur Inland Container Depot in Dhaka.
Due to the long overstay at the outer anchorage and extra stay at the jetty, vessels are counting the excess operational costs and incurring huge losses by failing woefully to operate trips promptly, said BSAA Chairman Ahsanul Huq Chowdhury.
As the vessels are actually staying six to a week at the jetties from the most common three-day, the association called for waiving berth occupancy costs for the overstay and also requested discounts on storage rent for empty containers given that they can't be sent on time.
"Such waiver could help shipping lines in this hard time," Chowdhury said.
