Bullish assessments are being made about US East Coast development. But, while it may be all shook up about the Panama Canal, the future pattern of business lies with more than just one trade lane, with the Suez Canal also featuring in port plans.<\/p>\n
Economist Walter Kemmsies projects 6.2% growth for the East Coast over the next 10 years. “All the ports are in pretty good shape. It is worthwhile to note that there have been no reductions in credit ratings. Savannah in particular has shown significant growth and is now the biggest port after New York\/New Jersey.”<\/p>\n
He notes that South America is growing in importance. “Brazil is becoming a big market for the US, with oil-related projects, and is much more important in the head-haul legs for carriers. Suez is figuring more in carriers’ plans to the East Coast, and traffic is coming from different directions. It’s not all about the Panama Canal.”<\/p>\n
Mr Kemmsies says he is “very impressed” by the efforts of ports to tackle challenges, such as environmental issues, rail access and dredging. But they must not become fixated on 8,000 teu vessels after the Panama Canal is widened. “There won’t be a flood of 8,000 teu ships as they make up a small part of the world fleet.”<\/p>\n
At the same time, shipping lines are focusing more on their core business and are shedding services such as chassis provisions.<\/p>\n
“However, too much attention is being paid to the effects of the Panama Canal and too little to developing exports.”We are a capital and agriculture goods exporter, which cannot be put into containers. The goods we sell come from areas with small populations and the type of infrastructure needed is different to that for imports.”<\/p>\n
Head of the Hampton Roads Shipping Association, Roger Giesinger says Virginia is doing very well, with crane moves at the APM Norfolk International Terminal, the most advanced in the US, reaching as much as 45 an hour. “Overall efficiency at all terminals can be improved if vessel layouts are right.” He says that configurations vary according to the shipping line and type of vessel, leading to delays as cranes have to be shifted.<\/p>\n
Operations could also be improved if a more industrial-manufacturing approach was taken to facilities such as terminal gates and distribution areas. “They should be seen as part of a manufacturing process. Sometimes, movements are slowed because of bottlenecks at the gates, or because of chassis shortages.”<\/p>\n
Uninformed, public speculation of port plans mainly centres on the capability for handling Maersk’s 18,000 teu vessels. However, the ports themselves have not been asked to prepare for those sizes.<\/p>\n
Ports America’s Seagirt terminal at Baltimore – a 50-year partnership with the Maryland state authority – will be fully dredged to 50 feet in the third quarter of this year and will be able to handle 14,000 teu ships. Norfolk, Virginia is the only other port on the coast with the same capability. “Our client has not come to us as yet about plans for 18,000 teu,” says Ports America Chesapeake’s chief executive Mark Montgomery.<\/p>\n
Maryland’s issue of a $245m bond to finance the Seagirt deal has been hailed as the outstanding infrastructure deal of 2010, by two project finance publications.<\/p>\n
At Baltimore, Ports America crane movement rates are averaging 35 an hour. “While we are pleased with this, we are always striving to do better and on the larger vessels in Baltimore they are getting close to 40,” says Mr Montgomery.<\/p>\n
Infrastructure is the focus of attention at Baltimore, with a near-dock chassis pool and a rail network system to handle double stacking to points as far as Chicago. Volumes rebounded in 2010 to 32m tonnes in 2010 after falling to 22m tonnes the year before.<\/p>\n
Mr Montgomery agrees with those who caution that the Panama Canal should not be seen as the only influence on the East Coast. “Manufacturing in Asia is switching west and south, making Suez more important.”<\/p>\n
At Virginia, the main point of interest is the reverse private-public partnership at the APM terminal, with the port paying $40m a year over 20 years, which adjusted for inflation could eventually mean $70m a year. Joe Harris, port spokesman, calls the venture “very successful. We are getting 42 lifts an hour. We can move services between that and other terminals to get maximum efficiency”; a statement which gives an indication of the strategy behind the lease.<\/p>\n
However, operations at the three-berth terminal recently received a setback when an accident involving a ZPMC ship, which had just delivered the last of the eight cranes, knocked two of them out of action.<\/p>\n
For New York\/New Jersey, the biggest container complex after Long Beach\/Los Angeles, the future partly lies with raising the Bayonne Bridge 65 feet at a cost of about $1bn. A port spokesman says the project is on track to be finished by the time the widened Panama Canal opens in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US East Coast ports should look past the Panama widening hype for long term gains, finds Martin Rushmere<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-8223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-america"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8225,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8223\/revisions\/8225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8223"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=8223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}