TANKS & LOGISTICS
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interference by governments. The implication is that, whatever cost pressures tank container operators are going to face in the near future, shipping costs will not be among them.
TANK POTENTIAL Ms Joe Boa, account manager at CIMC, which accounts for around half of all new tank container production, delivered another detailed paper showing the development of the tank container sector in Asia. Despite dominating output of new tanks, China’s use of intermodal transport in general is at a low level, and this is particularly true in the chemicals sector. Compared to Europe, where the use of intermodal transport rose by some 70 per cent between 2009 and 2015, China’s chemical industry still ships 71 per cent of its output by road. On the other hand, the volume of intra- Asian trade and trade between Asia and the rest of the world continues to grow. In value terms, intra-Asian chemical trade is expected
to show an average annual growth of 10 per cent between 2009 and 2020, reaching $10.8 trillion, while trade to the rest of the world is expected to show slower growth of 6 per cent per year over the period, reaching a value of $5.5 trillion by 2020. In theory at least, tank containers
are well placed to capture much of this growth. They have significant advantages in terms of handling, environmental protection and lifetime costs, although they are comparatively pricey to buy in the first place when set against the use of drums, flexitanks or road tankers. To counter the competition posed by
flexitanks in particular, CIMC has been involved in research to assess the suitability of flexitanks for the transport of liquid cargo in bulk. Ms Boa showed film of a test undertaken in France to determine the sloshing forces inside a freight container carrying a flexitank, which indicated that the forces involved are too great for the container’s structure to cope.
Competition from other types of
container is not the only issue holding back the development of local deployment of tank containers, Ms Boa said. Although standards are being tightened up, there is still insufficient focus on safety in the transport of chemicals in China for tank containers’ safety benefits to have value; there is also a lack of awareness of the concept’s advantages and a shortage of intermodal facilities. CIMC is working hard to address these
shortcomings, as was ably demonstrated at the company’s tank container symposium in June (HCB Monthly July/August 2016, page 24). Given that tank containers currently carry only 30 per cent of the country’s chemical production, there is plenty of room for growth. HCB
@tco’s next general meeting will take place in Shanghai this coming 16 November; full details can be found at
www.atcoasia.com.
WWW.HCBLIVE.COM
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