Reefer container keeps piling up despite port authority’s best efforts

Poor delivery of refrigerated containers, largely known as reefer containers, used to transport perishable goods continues to be a major hurdle for the Chattogram Port despite the recent improvements in the release of many other containers.

As a result, the port has run out of its capacity in the yards designated to store refrigerated containers -- a situation that is hampering the unloading of import containers from the vessels as the reefer containers are kept at the upper rows and delays in discharging them holds back the overall discharge of other import containers, lingering ships' stay and increasing the overall turnaround time.

This has prompted the traffic department of the port authority on Tuesday to warn that it would impose four times the store rent on reefer containers if importers do not speed up delivery by May 16.

The port has granted 100 per cent waiver on store rent for all import containers until Saturday as part of its efforts to be rid of congestion.

Some 2,200 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of reefer containers, which need fixed plug-in points for constant electricity supply, can be accommodated in the port yards. But in early April, the number of reefer containers hit 3,000 TEUs.

To enhance the capacity further, the layers for storing reefer containers have recently been raised to five from three previously using equipment that has high lifting-capacity, said Enamul Karim, director for traffic of the Chattogram Port Authority (CPA).

This has extended the storage capacity of reefers to 2,600 TEUs, he added.

Even then, the port ran out of capacity on Tuesday after the number of reefers reached 2,740 TEUs as daily delivery has dropped by half of normal to 150 TEUs to 200 TEUs, according to port officials.

Usually ahead of Ramadan and the summer fruit import increases and the same happened this year as well.

But most of the letters of credits against the imports were opened before coronavirus became a global pandemic, according to Karim.

Due to the countrywide shutdown since March 26 to flatten the curve on coronavirus, fruit sales dropped off locally, prompting the importers to keep their products at the port, he added.

Sensing a delay, a vessel, TR Porthos, which was booked to carry 500 TEUs from Colombo left behind most of the reefer containers in the Sri Lankan port and brought in only 80 TEUs, said Ajmir Hossain Chowdhury, assistant general manager of the vessel's local agent, Marco Shipping Company (BD).

The vessel berthed at a port's jetty on May 11 but could not unload a single reefer container in the last two days due to the space shortage, he said.

Were the unloading on schedule, the ship could have left the port yesterday, but its stay might linger now.