North American ports face the mega-ship challenge

摘要

North American ports are facing two keychallenges. They must modernise theirterminals and connecting infrastructure to meet the immediate needs of beneficial cargo owners (BCOs), while engaging in long-term planning for even larger cargo volumes and bigger ships as the maritime industry consolidates. BCOs are agnostic when it comes to terminal and vessel size, but they react quickly to port congestion, long truck lines, and equipment charges that are precipitated by port inefficiencies.As ports develop their master plans with a timeline of 10 to 20 years, they must co-ordinate those plans with existing projects still under development. This means ports are modifying facilities designed for vessels with a maximum capacity of 5,000 teu to accomodate ships of more than twice that size to handle current cargo volumes. Ports also are planning for 22,000 teu vessels that are on order for the Asia-Europe trade, but could at some point in the future call in North America. For Los Angeles-Long Beach, North America's largest port complex, planners are preparing for a projected container volume of 40 million teu in 2040.