The time has arrived when the question in the maritime world is, “Where in the world can a ship with 20,000 TEUs on board be efficiently discharged and reloaded?”
Unfortunately, the answer is “almost nowhere.” In fact, one would be hard-pressed to name a port in the U.S. — and even Europe — where that could happen.
Are the shipowners so insanely greedy that they fail to take into consideration how congestion in any port will run up their expenses and delay the ship just so the owner can earn an extra buck or two on the ocean freight rate?
Will the U.S. government be willing to continue bearing its share of dredging costs for all ports when it now has two with a third about ready on the East Coast that can accommodate 50-foot megas. Efficient discharging at those sites now is running into problems. On the West Coast, Seattle-Tacoma and the Los Angeles-Long Beach areas are able to accommodate 50-foot vessels, but landside facilities are limited. Ships in Southern California already are waiting in line for turns to dock.
It not only is the channel depth, but it also is the very critical lack shoreside of being able to keep the containers moving efficiently.
Lacking are truck drivers throughout the nation. A driver shortage of 100,000 by the year 2018 is predicted. Who is going to drive those containers to their destinations — be it local or 1,500 miles away? The railroads already are throwing up their switches with the hue and cry, “We are overloaded.”
Even before the containers reach the point of the rail flatcar or the truck hauler, there is a critical lack of chassis, so how is the container going to be moved?
In the above instances, the channel depth is not the problem, but the growing headaches are the congestion on landside as well as the availability of operational chassis. Otherwise, the global containers will be delayed aboard the mega-bottoms.
Helen Delich Bentley, President, Helen Delich Bentley and Associates