Solar opens export doors
NORTH Queensland’s solar boom has helped re- establish valuable shipping links into Asia, opening opportunities for trade in minerals, metals, fruit and vegetables from Townsville.
Shipping line ANL this week marked its return to Townsville with managing director John Lines telling a function for the port, stakeholders and clients they were “fair dinkum” about making the services work and were “absolutely knocked out” by the support.
“We’ve had good support out of South East Asia and we are building our support northbound out of Townsville. I can’t say it’s as strong as I would like but it’s building,” Mr Lines said.
ANL added Townsville into services into Papua New Guinea in April – marking its return after more than 30 years – and in July launched direct services to Port Kelang, Singapore and Jakarta, providing some of the fastest transit times available from Australia.
Mr Lines, who worked in Townsville with the then government- owned ANL in coastal shipping, said customers like Townsville’s Sun Metals zinc refinery and mining group Glencore had encouraged them to return.
But it was the import of solar panels from Asia for the large scale utility projects in North Queensland that had made the difference, he said.
“We just weren’t able to get the right mix to get the profit on the call. ( The shipping of) the solar panels has made all the difference,” Mr Lines said.
Modification of containers to support battery storage, through its Container Hire and Sales division, was providing further opportunities, he said.
On developing fruit and vegetable exports from Townsville, Mr Lines said it was a matter of educating producers on what was available and having them take advantage of the opportunities.
One issue was higher margins sending produce into Australia’s southern markets, he said.
Mr Lines said it may take just one entrepreneurial producer moving a container of mangoes into Singapore to spur the market and get others to follow.
Managing the process, branding, encouraging importers to buy into the brand and reliability were keys to its success, he said.
ANL is Australia’s largest refrigerated container carrier and largest shipping line although consolidation among other global carriers could see that change soon.
Mr Lines said the one thing about ANL was they didn’t overpromise and always tried to overdeliver.
ANL is part of the French CMA CGM Group, the third largest container shipping line in the world.