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Against a background of the Port of Melbourne Pty Ltd planning for the expansion of container capacity, International Container Terminal Services inc. (ICTSI) has submitted its own proposal of how to achieve necessary expansion, based on the enlargement of its Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT) located in Webb Dock, the designated expansion area.

Some might see such a move as audacious but is it or is it just a sign of the times, an initiative which we can expect to see more of in the future?

Going back in time, the priority coupled with new container terminal development in Australia was to introduce a ‘third force’ into container handling. This is now in place with Hutchison establishing alongside the two existing incumbents, DP World and Patricks, terminals in Brisbane and Botany Bay, and VICT offering a fully automated solution in Melbourne, opening for business in 2017.

Not surprisingly, however, since this era the world has changed. New priorities are the order of the day, with the need to respond to a major upscaling in vessel size and to capture the economies of scale that go with this central to today’s challenges. Scale to deliver more competitive shipping and, in turn, lower pricing for importers and exporters.

In the 10 years since Maersk Line introduced its E class vessels, with a nominal capacity of just over 13,000TEU, containership capacity has experienced a decade of the strongest growth advancing today to over the 24,000TEU mark, as evidenced by Evergreen’s Ever Alot, introduced into service in mid-2022 with a capacity of 24,004TEU and featuring an LOA of 400m. In the rapid pursuit of bigger and bigger capacity vessels, the path to achieving this moved on from expanding vessel beam to extending LOA . To put it in context the Ever Alot is 20m short of being the length of four football pitches. At the same time, the host of new higher capacity vessels being introduced, with this trend never more pronounced than today, has accelerated the cascading of larger capacity vessels into secondary trade lanes where complementary port facilities have enabled this.

It is not just draught that has been a consideration here but equally important length of quay line and in particular the ability to simultaneously accommodate more than one vessel with a long LOA. Since 2020 Australian east coast container trade has seen the call of