Durban's container queue is now a rail and border problem as well

South Africa's main container gateway is stuck in a loop that yard data alone cannot explain. Stack occupancy at Durban Gateway Terminal has fallen to 55.3 per cent, yet 10 to 12 vessels were still at anchor in the week to 22 October, and the terminal is handling roughly 3,300 to 3,400 container moves a day — about what arrives. Here is what the latest numbers actually say.

Waterside

• DGT moved 28,617 TEU in the week of 12 to 18 October, 4,088 a day, down 14 per cent week on week, per the SAAFF/BUSA Cargo Movement Update No. 304.
• Average anchorage wait was 274 hours — more than 11 days — with about 11 ships offshore. Kuehne+Nagel's 27 October port update records 10.5 days at anchorage and a backlog of roughly 30,000 moves.
• Three ship-to-shore cranes at Pier 1 were out of service, leaving four cranes across two berths.
• At 4,600 moves a day, clearing the existing queue would still take about a month, the SAAFF/BUSA report estimates. Delays across terminals range from zero to 17 days.

Landside

• Rail volumes out of Durban fell 33 per cent in the week to 1,269 containers.
• The N4 corridor to Maputo ran 1.5 trains a day; truck crossings slipped 2 per cent to 1,396 a day.
• A queue of about 15 km formed at the Lebombo crossing on 15 October, and uncertainty over Mozambique's three-spare-tyre requirement for trucks continues to distort planning. Border queues averaged about five hours, processing about 4.2 hours.
• SADC border queues averaged 7.4 hours; the median South African crossing was 8.3 hours; Kasumbalesa on the DRC border can take five days from the Zambian side.

Where the boxes went

• Ngqura handled 19,062 TEU, down 10 per cent but still the country's second-busiest box terminal, with anchorage waits of 2.6 days and 3.3 days at berth.
• Cape Town took 15,288 TEU, up 35 per cent, with 0.7 days at anchorage.
• Port Elizabeth jumped 464 per cent to 7,935 TEU, partly returning cargo.
• Nationally, terminals handled 90,885 TEU, up 2 per cent, or 12,984 a day.

What it costs

SAAFF and BUSA put the indirect cost of that week's logistics delays at about ZAR 736 million, down from ZAR 843 million. The State of Logistics 2026 report projects South African logistics costs reaching ZAR 1.156 trillion, or 14.6 per cent of GDP. Beira is worse than Durban on the water: 14.5 days average waiting, conditions "critical", with wind and rain adding pressure to an ongoing terminal recovery. Port Louis sits at six days and is omitting eastbound calls through week 48 specifically to protect schedule reliability wrecked by Durban.

For shippers

• Ask, in writing, whether your vessel will omit Durban, and if it re-nominates to Ngqura or Cape Town, who pays the extra inland leg and at what tariff.
• For South African imports, move order dates forward two to three weeks. A 35-day planning cycle is fiction this quarter.
• Road freight via Mozambique: source spare tyres and paperwork before loading, not at the Lebombo queue.
• Transhipment cargo routed via Port Louis should carry a buffer — eastbound omissions are booked into late November.

Yufeng International Logistics runs door-to-door and customs-integrated services on Southern African and Indian Ocean lanes; alternates are listed under Africa routes, or write to sales@ruixincargo.com.

Sources: Based on the SAAFF/BUSA Cargo Movement Update No. 304 as reported by Africa Ports & Ships and OrePulse, and Kuehne+Nagel's global port operational update of 27 October 2026.