Today we visited Limassol again and got a tour of two terminals at the port. The port is made up of three companies: DP World, Eurogate and P&O Maritime. We were given presentations by DP World and Eurogate. DP World handles all of the cargo and passenger ships coming into the port. Eurogate handles all container shipments. At the end of the day, we were given another presentation by the Cyprus Port Authority.
To start off the day, DP World gave us a short presentation on their supply chain processes. With a high level overview, we learned how the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and other factors have affected passenger ships and cargo ships. With the decrease in travel from COVID-19, this affected their day to day operations a lot. Also, with the dramatic change in the global economy, this heavily affected them as well.
Next, we traveled to the other side of the port to have a tour given by Eurogate. The container transport was by far the most visually exiting thing on the trip so far. Eurogate is extremely efficient in transporting TEUs, or Twenty Foot Equivalent Units, which are the long crates that we see on ships. The government in Cyprus recommends that a company like Eurogate can do a transport cycle for a TEU in under 90 minutes. This company has achieved an 18 minute average.
In order to transport a container from the ship to the container storage space, the company starts by using a gantry crane to lift the crane off of the ship.
Next, a straddle carrier, which is pictured below will pick up the crate and move it to either a truck or a space in their storage space. I thought that these vehicles looked like something from Star Wars. I enjoyed watching all of the moving parts very much.
I was also extremely impressed by the minimization of accidents with a process like this. Our tour guide told us that there are very few accidents and injuries each year.
After this the CPA presented to us giving us a final overview of how these ports are run. The CPA has a nine member board and it also acts as the National Lighthouse Authority. They are split up into two parts, the government sector and the private sector. The government sector includes customs and the health department, among other things. The private sector includes the ports, ship agents, and container repair, among other things.
The CPA is currently looking to fully digitalize all the ports. Their priorities also include making everything sustainable. They will start with the headquarters. They want to turn it into a green building. They are thinking of installing solar and using electric vehicles for all activities of CPA later on, constantly taking steps in this direction.
Overall, today was very informational and I found that a job working at the port would be very enjoyable. We talked to a few of the administrative engineers who were very knowledgeable and light hearted. They even let us play ping pong on their table.
