Uiltrasporti asks the immediate opening for a table that faces the situation of crisis of the Port Channel of Cagliari



Uiltrasporti, denouncing that with a net loss of traffic of the -72% in single three years Port Channel of Cagliari it is straining literally to peak, has asked the immediate opening for a table of crisis constituted from the political, datoriali and trade-union institutions that can face radically problematic of the container the terminals of Cagliari and have wished that in the next weeks the minister of Infrastructures and the Transports, Danilo Toninelli, can face the dramatic situation of the Sardinian port. If in the 2015 traffic of the container enlivened from the port channel of the Sardinian chief town - it has evidenced the labor organization - it has been pairs to 686.000 teu, in the 2017 a bending to 420.000 has been recorded and the forecasts for the year in to 190,000 course are attested single teu, with a -55% in a year.

Defining "incomprehensible" the attitude of Contship Italy, the society that through the branch Cagliari International Container Terminal (CICT) manages the container terminal of the port, than - it has asserted "it seems to want to ditch the port of call intentionally inhabitant of cagliari", the general secretary of the Uiltrasporti Sardinia, William Zonca, has emphasized as "the scene of the terminal of Cagliari cannot have a long life. Sure - it has specified - we pay three years and means of commissariamento of the port which had to the do-nothing policy of the Sardinia Region that did not succeed to designate the possible president of the Harbour Authority. Today, at a distance of beyond a year from the nomination of the president of the AdSP of the Sea of Sardinia - it has added Zonca - we do not find but initiatives that succeed to change the current situation, that he is more and more worrisome. Therefore we wish that they are undertaken the first possible one of the initiatives that they make to change broken to the terminal of Cagliari so as to protect the workers today operate in this truth: 220 dependent of assigned CICT and inducing of about 300. We would not want to be found again to having to continue to manage demanded of new social shocks-absorber or, worse still, lay-offs from all the enterprises that operate inside of the terminal, for guilt of a do-nothing policy by who it has obligation to take decisions to it in merit and to manage the future and the development of the portualità".

In a Uiltrasporti dossier-denunciation it refutes that "the crisis of the terminal inhabitant of cagliari can be due to the insularity and the impossibility to manage important traffic of import/export for the absence of railroads and the insufficient local economy. "He is sufficient to go to look the data published from the Harbour Authority of Gioia Tauro (whose container terminal takes part also it of the Network of Contship Italy, ndr) - it has found Zonca - for evincere easy that Cagliari is advanced it is in terms percentages that in terms of absolute amount. Gioia Tauro has a percentage of import/export inferior to 2% on the enlivened total of container in a year, with a volume of about 35.000 teu enlivened in a year. Cagliari, instead, in last the five years has evidenced a volume of import/export never inferior to 14%, in increase in the past couple of years until about 17%, with a volume of 80.000 teu (source collection from the site AdSP Cagliari). He is evident therefore that the quantitative ones of import/export cannot be vehicle of attraction of traffics for Joy and not for Cagliari. It achieves some that the traffic volumes import/export cannot be cited from the terminalista which vehicle of attraction of traffics for Gioia Tauro and not for Cagliari".

In the dossier the union examines also the pilotage costs and of the towing services observing as the costs for both the types of services, to parity of rates (established on a national level), are advanced to Gioia Tauro regarding Cagliari. The document moreover evidences that if to Cagliari it is employed and demanded a pilot in income and in escape, and the tugs are quite optional, to Gioia Tauro at least a tug is always obligatory, and the pilots in income and in escape the channel must be two, with first paid to 100% of the rate and second to 50%. Moreover, made not negligible - the document still specifies - the ships that journey in the strait of Messina, they are obliged to take the pilot on board, with consequent increase of the costs.

"He is obvious - Zonca has rimarcato - than the pilotage costs and tugs are always advanced to Gioia Tauro, but although this the problem of the mooring costs is from always one of the elements that are cited by the terminalista in order to justify presumed the little concorrenzialità of Cagliari on the other ports of call and also on Gioia Tauro".

Uiltrasporti has examined also the position of the two harbour ports of call finding as, as for the distance from the great routes of navigation, the position of Cagliari is very more headquarters regarding Gioia Tauro: the port inhabitant of cagliari is situated in fact to about 45 miles from the imaginary line of the main Suez-Gibraltar route, while Gioia Tauro is distant about 160 miles from this line and has of means the strait of Messina with the relative traffic and costs of pilotage.

According to Uiltrasporti, also the relationship employee/teu enlivened era very more favorable for Cagliari and "such to return therefore the voice thinner than cost of the staff, graces also to the best use of the flexibility instruments I yield of the trade-union agreements and the parallel contract of some harbour operations". "This fact - Uiltrasporti observes - could have guaranteed to the Contship group a greater serenity in the hypothesis of investments, also thanks to the best profits of the several exercises anniversaries. In fact, it is famous that Cagliari is from always vituous in terms of costs and profits, with the exception of other terminals of the group. Nevertheless to a better picture than reference an investment plan that could be planned with better hypotheses than I re-enter and with less risks is not corresponded than exposure".

The document is stopped therefore on the investments of Contship Italy finding that "today, in spite of a deliberation of the CIPE of the 2002 and subscription of a lease of 2006 for 60,6 million euros (finalized to the purchase of the new cranes), the terminalista has not still concluded some structural investment major-league", while "parallel has asked and obtained two delays on the lease: the first has moved the date of closing of the contract from on December 31, 2010 on December 31, 2013, and the second one from 31dicembre 2013 to the 31 dicembre2018. Reliable sources - Uiltrasporti still supports - speak on December 31, 2019 about an ulterior demand for delay until, whose acceptance by the Ministry is not famous".

"The reasons of these demands for delays reside in the presumed and persistent world-wide crisis of the traffics that evidently - accusation the Uiltrasporti - has had so long effects only to Cagliari. It is mentioned - the union - that in period 2010-2017 all the main terminals of the Mediterranean have heavy invested on the renewal of means of raising in dock, to CICT exclusion finds. These investments have happened also in the other terminals of the Contship group. Although this presumed crisis, CICT has closed last the ten budgets with strong assets, quantifiable between the 4 and 6 million annual (to exclusion of 2008, year of the redundancy fund), picture that could have facilitated the idea to invest on infrastructures. Parallel, while Contship sent back the investments to Cagliari, to Gioia Tauro four super cranes in the 2007 and five crane still larger in 2009 are acquired. Nine cranes that give eight years by now receive the great ships that cannot be received to Cagliari. Similar purchases, but of inferior entity, have happened to La Spezia (port in which Contship Italy work through La Spezia Container Terminal, ndr), and parallel Contship has started the terminal of Tangeri in Morocco, with investments in the long term also in terms of human resources from Italy. Lately the attentions of Contship and the connected "mother" Eurogate, have been concentrated in Iran and to Cyprus, where they are in arrival the first mega cranes with the classics colors rossoblu of the group. One wonders to us therefore as it is possible that, while to large Cagliari made gain, the lacked investments were justified in the name of "presumed" crisis the transhipment, instead in the other terminals of the group was invested heavy although they returned less from the point of view of the profits".

"Today - Uiltrasporti continues - the Contship continuous Italy to declare that the cranes are not the problem of the crisis of the terminal. This in opened contradiction with how much express from the same society in the passages that carried to the lease of 2006, where one declared that the more urgent investment was the purchase of the new cranes: already 12 years ago were insufficient! With the exception of how much declared one, multiple direct and reliable sources have declared several times that from at least two years the will lack was famous to invest to Cagliari by Contship. Investments that - Uiltrasporti still finds - always are declared necessary and not avoidable in order to guarantee future to the terminal. Moreover, the terminalista today supports that 80% of the ships container of the world have an inferior ability to the 8,000 teu (limit of job of the dock cranes). Denunciation is a false data - the union - and if also it were true, it would be false in the context of the transhipment in which Cagliari work. In the transhipment, the medium largeness of the ships has grown enormously during the last few years, with a medium ability to stowage that by now it sees to us to the limits of the machinability. Attention but: the problem is only the cranes, while grounds, basin of evolution, docks, spaces of storage to large square are able to receive mega the ships that in the past few years furrow the seas. Once again, therefore, it is evidenced that the problem of the escape of scene of Cagliari is from mainly chargeing to the impossibility to operate on the great ships”.

According to Uiltrasporti, “currently Cagliari is able to not to work not even a service of the great companies of navigation (Maersk, MSC, COSCO, CMA, Hapag Lloyd and UASC) in the Extreme route the East-Mediterranean/Europe. In all the services between Europe and the East (Indian, China, Malaysia, Japan and Thailand) - the union explains - operate ships with ability from 10-12.000 teu to go up. We are still in a position to working (even though with of the limits) - Uiltrasporti specifies - the services for the North America and South America, but it is obvious that a terminal of transhipment that it can only receive the routes towards the Americas and not towards the East, does not have long-life and it is deprived a priori of the possibility to manage the traffic drafts numerically and economically more profitable containers, as it is famous to that the great part of the world-wide productions arrives from Asia”.

As for the crisis of the ports of transhipment, where - as to Gioia Tauro and the port channel of Cagliari - the container is reshipped by a ship to another for being transported towards destinations not touched directly from portacontainer “the mother” of greater ability, for Uiltrasporti Sardinia it is “from second rejecting the idea which the transhipment it would be died. Draft - for the union - of a partisan affirmation, expressed probably from who it does not have more will than to invest in the field. To think that larger the mega-ships recently launched or that anchor that will come can climb all the ports - the union emphasizes - is pure fantasy. Very more realistic to think that they make “to flussare” great amounts of containers in disembarkation and boarding in little terminals, best if very organized with adequate infrastructures and great spaces, and Cagliari has enormous potentialities in so far as”.

The dossier-denunciation is stopped also on the insularity of the Sardinia and its limited home market that - confirmation the union - “are sure a limit”. “But that to say then - Uiltrasporti finds - of Malta, member as we of the European Community, that it is distant less than 150 miles and that works at full speed with 3,1 million teu per year, 2,5 kilometers of dock, 21 enormous cranes that can serve ships from 18.000 teu and beyond, connected to 130 ports worldwide and 62 in the Mediterranean? The big difference - Uiltrasporti observes - is not as well as the geographic positioning how much a coese strategy and governance between port and State with an absolute focalization on the increase and strong partnership with CMA CGM (a French shipowning group that is shareholder of the society that manages the port container of Malta, ndr), one of the top five in the shipping that it guarantees a clapper of volumes become fly for ulterior increase”.

Uiltrasporti concludes emphasizing the necessity, “before giving for lost the possibility to give to the Port Channel of Cagliari a future one as port of transhipment”, “making ulterior reflections” and evidences as “above all it are worth it not to throw in the towel because the cost of the renunciation risks to being enormously advanced to the cost of the investments necessary in order to continue to compete, without to forget that the eventual opportunities for goods to work in a hypothetical bonded area cannot prescind from the connections with Far East and from transhipment of the Port the Channel”.