Over 40 vessels have already docked at the state-of-the-art facility which January being a bumper month.

State-owned Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) on Monday reported that transshipment volumes from the Far East, South America and the rest of Africa had started to arrive at the Ngqura container terminal, in Port Elizabeth, during January.

Vessel calls were bumped up to 43 during this period, and total cargo volumes up to 35 403 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) since the terminal's operational launch in October 2009.

TPT said in a statement that January alone saw 18 ships arrive at the terminal, compared to an average of seven over the months October to December.

TPT's divisional executive manager for the container sector, Siya Mhlaluka, said that the company's strategy was always to position Ngqura container terminal as a potential transhipment hub because of its position midway between the Americas, Far East and Asia.

"We are seeing a good response now, with vessels coming in from the Far East to drop off containers that are then picked up by vessels heading to South American locations."

The Port of Ngqura's advantage over other ports in Africa is that it is a deep-water port with a depth of 16,5 m alongside the berth and an 18 m draft at the entrance channel, which can accommodate the new generation container vessels.

Currently shipping lines MSC and MOL have included the Port of Ngqura in their regular ports of call, and Mhlaluka said that other lines were showing interest and Transnet was in the process of negotiating contracts with them.

Transnet is on course to meeting its volume targets for the facility. It had set out to handle 50 000 TEUs in the first six months of operation and 100 000 TEUs by the end of the first year.

The terminal started off cautiously, handling 2 960 TEUs in October but maintained steady growth and had handled 19 606 TEUs in January.

Some volumes have been moved from the neighbouring Port of Port Elizabeth (PE_ although there are still service lines calling at PE container terminal.

Mhlaluka said that TPT has also been ramping up productivity since launching in October. The average gross crane hour (GCH), or the number of containers moved per crane per hour, at the terminal was currently 22 with December performance peaking at 26.

"This makes Ngqura container terminal one of our best performing in terms of crane operations," he said.

To date, Transnet has invested in excess of R10-billion to develop the Port of Ngqura.