Weather conditions in KwaZulu-Natal in April disrupted the entire supply chain, and while this is slowly being restored to normality, there are considerable direct and consequential costs to the region and country, and a full recovery will take much time, law firm Bowmans ports, transport and logistics head Andrew Pike tells Engineering News.

He notes that the supply chain impact comes as a result of damaged infrastructure such as roads, rail, warehouses and container depots.

“Where a road has been damaged, this has caused bottlenecks for trucks carrying cargoes, slowing down deliveries, impacting adversely on distribution, manufacturing and shipping, as well as pushing up costs within the supply chain, such as storage.

“Where a railway line has been damaged, this has resulted in more trucks on the road and therefore more congestion, again causing further delays and increased costs. Many containers were damaged in facilities where stacks of containers started floating and then collapsed on each other,” Pike points out.

With regard to ports, he outlines that Bayhead road, the access road to the Port of Durban, lost two of its four lanes (the inbound lanes).

Pike notes that this road provides access to the container terminals, dry bulk and liquid bulk handling and storage facilities.

Therefore, he says, the consequence of this was a considerable increase in truck congestion and a slowdown in cargo movements in and out of the port.

Pike avers that most importers and exporters through Durban especially are likely to have been adversely affected by the weather and its impacts, either by way of delays to their cargoes, or increased trucking and storage costs.

Moreover, he notes that many logistics industry providers such as warehouses, container depots and truckers have been adversely affected.

“Many of the storage facilities were damaged and put out of action for days, if not weeks. Trucks have reduced the number of deliveries they can make, thus putting financial pressure on the owners,” he points out.

Pike says several measures have been taken to mitigate the impact of this, with some progress having been made. 

He notes that there was an announcement on June 13 that the damaged lanes in Bayhead road had been fully restored.

Moreover, one of the damaged rail lines is expected to be restored this month, with the second slated to be restored by the end of September.

Pike says most storage facilities have also recovered, however, some are still currently out of commission.

He also highlights that much dry bulk cargo was diverted from the dry bulk terminal on the Bluff to the Maydon Wharf terminals in town.

However, Pike points out that this has resulted in considerable congestion at Maydon Wharf, delaying ships and resulting in demurrage being incurred by importers and exporters.

He adds that trucks have also experienced significant delay, for example, five to six hours rather than the expected 45 minute turnaround times. This, Pike says, had led to many trucks having avoided the area, and consequently, there has been a shortage of transport.

Pike says Bowmans’ clients who were impacted by the situation were largely affected by delays, ship demurrage and storage costs, which they would not otherwise have incurred, as well as increased land transport costs.

Moreover, several of the firm’s clients that operate logistics facilities in the area were completely flooded and had to undertake measures such as refurbishment or replacing damaged offices and machinery, and repairing containers and infrastructure, he points out.

Pike says the logistics supply chain comprises a series of relationships along the chain, between providers and users of different logistics services, with each relationship governed by a contract of some description.

To mitigate the situation, he says Bowmans’ role has largely been to interpret and advise clients on their legal position under those contracts in relation to both upstream and downstream relationships.

“This has required us to consider what the various parties’ obligations are to each other under the contracts, and whether they are excused from performing some or all of those obligations because of the floods under force majeure clauses or other provisions of our law.

“Ultimately, we have tried to guide clients to positions where they can amicably resolve disputes with counter-parties and still maintain, where possible, the underlying commercial relationships. Where that is not possible, we will provide litigation support to clients, but see that as a last resort in circumstances where everyone along the supply chain has had to take some pain,” he explains.

Pike emphasises that, while this weather has been the biggest disruption to the supply chain of its sort, this is not the first instance of a disruptive occurrence.

He highlights, for example, flash floods experienced in October 2017, and riots and looting in July 2021.

Further, even the April floods were followed merely a few weeks later by a day of intense high-volume rain which exacerbated the situation.

“Given the changing weather patterns, unpredictability of South African society and infrastructure under pressure, anyone who relies on the supply chain needs to do a full risk assessment of the strength and resilience of the physical and contractual links in their particular chain in order to ensure minimal future disruption and losses,” Pike advises.