US west coast self promotes in Qingdao, notes east coast's lure

CONCERN over competition from US east coast ports for Asian cargo, has prompted the US west coast port and railway interests, to make a declaration at last week's World Shipping Summit in Qingdao, defending their long-standing status as the preferred gateway to America.

"Typical US east coast services from north China into Norfolk or New York/New Jersey for example will require nine to 11 vessels in a single loop versus five to seven vessels required for most deployments into US west coast ports," said Bill Wyatt, executive director at Port of Portland.

But US east coast ports, led by Savannah, urge the all-water route, keeping cargo shipboard until it reaches the big American markets in the east, thus avoiding costly transcontinental rail and road haulage. The limiting factor of the all-water argument has been the 6,000 TEU-ship limit through Panama, but that will be doubled in 2014 when the canal's expansion is complete.

So the ports of Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles have combined with BNSF Railway Company and Union Pacific to promote the west coast to ocean carriers and the Qingdao shipping conference.

A US West Coast Collaboration group has been set up and its members say they handle 70 per cent of containers out of Asia through 31 container terminals with 225 cranes and more than 2,000 hectares of capacity. They cover a network of over a 100 weekly vessel calls with direct connections to 80 ports in 36 countries and links to multiple North American road and rail routes.

Mr Wyatt, the Portland harbour chief, said the geographic proximity to China was an advantage for the west coast because it requires fewer ships, transit times are faster and bunker fuel costs drop.

Los Angeles port director Geraldine Knatz spoke of west coast ports interconnection feeding 200-250 weekly trains to all major intermodal hubs in the US.

"Based on a scenario of 8,000 TEU per acre, our total US west coast capacity today is almost 41 million TEU and growing", said Ms Knatz, with transit times from China to the US West Coast 10 to 14 days, with rail from four-six days to the Midwest and east coast."

Departing Tacoma port executive director Tim Farrell highlighted his ports shipping choices of more than 100 ships sailing to and from the west coast each week providing access to 80 ports in 36 key consumer markets around the world. "Looking to the future, our ports will provide strategic access to America's consumers whose numbers are expected to grow to 228 million by 2030," he added.

Union Pacific Railroad vice president John Kaiser said its long-standing record of investment with west coast ports has created greater access to growing markets and with BNSF investing $30 billion on rail networks has less environmental impact than all-water alternatives.

(Source: www.schednet.com)