“Most of the interest we see outside the US and the UK is focused primarily on logistics management, duty collection and border control more than counterterrorism,” says Mr Kant.

The US is now mandating significantly more inspection of cargo coming into the country – and there’s more to come. “But the largest driver is that as the technology has matured over the past couple of years, port operators and other authorities have learned how to use the equipment for improving logistics management and sometimes duty controls and smuggling enforcement.”

So while countries such as the US, the UK, Israel, Spain and Australia are evaluating X-ray products and systems in connection with explosives detection, radiation and nuclear detection and weapon smuggling, Mr Kant says that this is not the focus for most of the Asian ports, the large African ports, the ports of Latin America and even quite a proportion of European ports.

“So that changes what people are looking for.” For example, when operators in the US are looking for explosives or weapons coming through the port, it might be expected that if these were present, they would be moving in large quantities or as large items.

“This makes them easier to detect, so the technology doesn’t have to be as precise as the technology to see whether there are Rolex watches in the container, or whether there is stainless steel inside when carbonised steel has been declared.” This balance gives companies like Rapiscan, the security division of OSI, huge opportunities in regions such as Asia and Latin America – “because they are focused on what gives them the best inspection”, explains Mr Kant. “The better image quality they can get, the more appropriate duties they can generate.”

So is the US missing out on a trick here? Eighteen months ago, Peter Kant would have said yes. At that point, the US was overwhelmingly interested in entry level technology, which was less expensive and therefore delivered more equipment per dollar. Now, however, he sees the US moving into “stage two” as it recognises the opportunities of the higherend technology and at the same time, the costs of that technology are coming down.

“As a result, many US ports are looking to move away from gamma-ray systems to high-energy X-ray, the type of technology that has been used in Latin America and Asia for the past couple of years,” he says.

The motives behind that are not that the US has suddenly become more interested in the duty collection side of things, but rather that as “dirty” items become smaller, ports are looking for equipment that will detect smaller items and smaller amounts of radiation and nuclear content. “They are still focused on the counter-terrorism mission before everything.”

According to Peter Kant, the current fleet of gamma-ray systems in use in US ports adds up to 155 units. So even if the US buys at a rate of 20 high-energy X-ray systems a year, replacement of the fleet will clearly take time.

At present, the US inspects about 3% of containers by X-ray as they come into the country, and there is a political fight going on over increasing that level. Alongside this, a new law due to be implemented in 2010 will require 100% inspection of containers coming into the US for radiology and nuclear content. “The big question is, how are they going to do that?” says Mr Kant.