News / EU port operators can share costly electric container handling equipment

Photo: Kalmar

European terminal operators appear to have been given the green light by EU competition regulators to jointly purchase, with their competitors, emission-free container handling equipment.

According to EC competition body DG Comp, Maersk-owned APM Terminals had written to the authority late last year seeking informal guidance on whether “an agreement with other port terminal operators for the joint purchasing and the joint setting of minimum technical specifications of battery-electric straddle and shuttle carriers” would be in breach of European competition regulations.

Straddle carriers have traditionally been diesel-powered, but manufacturers have been offering battery-powered alternatives for a number of years, as they can provide ports with significant reductions in CO2 emissions.

However, industry take-up has been slow, due to a combination of the high purchase costs and a “lack of interoperability, in particular, between charging equipment from different suppliers”, the EC noted.

It said: “Hence, the envisaged agreement aims at reducing the costs for port terminal operators (i) by allowing them to pool a part of their future demand of these products; (ii) by providing suppliers with a more predictability about future demand; and (iii) by improving interoperability, in particular, between charging equipment produced by different suppliers,” the EC said.

Effectively, EC competition regulators said they would give clearance for APMT to form such a pool on the basis that it would “accelerate the shift from diesel to electric equipment in EU ports, contributing to reducing CO2 emissions”.

“EU competition rules ensure a functioning Single Market and fair competition,” Teresa Ribera, EVP for clean, just, and competitive transition at DG Comp.

“Where companies want to genuinely contribute to the transition to a net-zero economy, their efforts to decarbonise and to drive growth should not be hampered by uncertainty about the application of our competition rules.

“By issuing this guidance letter, we are providing clarity on the application of competition law to arrangements facilitating the switch to green container handling equipment at European ports, thereby contributing to the clean transition of infrastructures crucial to the single market and to EU trade,” she added.

The guidance to APMT – and by extension the European port industry – has a five-year tenure and is subject to caveats. Firstly, “the ability of the participating port terminal operators to each continue purchasing straddle and shuttle carriers independently”.

Second, “that the volume of demand that is pooled through the agreement is capped and therefore does not give rise to anti-competitive effects vis-à-vis the suppliers of these products”.

Lastly, that “the exchange of competitively sensitive information between participating terminal operators remains limited to what is strictly necessary for the functioning of the agreement”.