Roger Gray: Port of Auckland CEO on the shipping collaboration between Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk Gemini

Wondering when a shipment will turn up in New Zealand may hopefully be a thing of the past.  

A collaboration has been announced between two of the world's largest shipping companies - Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk Gemini Cooperation. 

Port of Auckland Chief Executive Roger Gray told Andrew Dickens the initiative may mean delivery takes longer across multiple ships, but it will also see cargo moved more reliably on a better schedule. 

He says importers and exporters will benefit from the schedule reliability, adding not knowing when cargo will arrive has been one of their biggest complaints.  

It's also expected to drive down freight prices. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A collaboration between two of the world's largest shipping companies
could drive down sea freight prices. Happag Lloyd and Mask's
Gemini Corporation are starting up next month. This co lab,
which will cover the ocean freight network on East West trades.
It's meant to see shipping prices drop immediately. Why improve
stability in the red Sea imports of Walk and Chief

(00:20):
executive Roger Gray joins me. Now, good morning to here, Roger,
Good morning Andrew. Cheaper prices. That's good.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah, Well, look, I think exporters and importers across New
Zealand will be very happy with this initiative from Papak
Lord and mrs.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
It's cheaper because it's called a hub and spoke operation.
Can you explain that for me.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah. What they're going to do is they're going to
most cargo on bigger ships, more reliably with a better schedule,
into big hub ports and then they'll use smaller ships
to come down to ports like Auckland and Total.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
So that means though freight could take longer because there's
a couple more movements.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, that's right, there could be. But what it will
be important for both importers and exports will there'll be
scheduled reliability. They'll know when their cargo will arrive. And
that's been one of the biggest complaints we've had from
customers over the last four or five years, is ships
not arriving on time, and this is a really good
initiative to get better at that.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
So a arrival stability is more important than timiness.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah. The reason for that is if your Woolworths and
you're ordering in food, you want to know when it's
going to arrive because you can then manage your inventries
to make sure you don't have stocks running out in
the stores. So yeah, this reliability is what customers talked
to us a lot about.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
And how does it improve stability in the Red Sea.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Well, there's two things that are happening. One happy Lloyd
and Musk will be running these bigger ships with more tonnage,
so there'll be guaranteed to be flowing. The other thing
is you're probably aware that the Hooti rebels have acknowledged
that they're going to stop attacking ships unless they're directly
linked to Israel, so that means the ships won't be
going around the bottom of Africa to get to Europe.

(02:09):
So this should be a really good two things coming
together at the same time, should be really good for
the industry, all.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Right, And when does it take hold? When does it
start impacting?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, we expect that we'll start to see it within
the next few months down here in New Zealand. Whilst
the Gemini agreement is not actually flowing directly here, we'll
start to see it coming into Australia and the Upper
and that should then provide us with the opportunity to
see this come in the next few months.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hey, Roger, thank you so much for getting up early
for us. That is Roger Gray, who is the CEO
of the Portugalkand for more.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
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