By Arthur Chen      Photo: Griffin Wooldridge 

The ports on the east coast and Mississippi river are aggressively motivated.

The waiting time for ports on the West Coast of the United States continues to deteriorate. Last week, there were 102 ships waiting in line off the port of Los Angeles, California. The average waiting time for arrival has risen to 17.7 days by November 16. Two Republican lawmakers in the United States have also proposed a new bill to encourage shipping lines to call ports in the East and the Gulf of Mexico instead of calling at west coast ports, and to provide subsidy of diversion to shipping companies. In addition to the Port of Los Angeles & Long Beach tried to charge carriers a "container port dwell fee" to speed up the circulation of containers at the terminal and improve congestion, though the latest notice has delayed the start of charges until November 29th . Pier Pass, a non-profit company established by 12 terminal operators, announced that it has adjusted the Traffic Mitigation Fee (TMF) standards for the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach to encourage truck drivers to move containers during off-peak hours to promote goods flow faster . According to statistics from the port area, as of last week, 20% of the containers stranded in the port area have been processed. There seems a good progress in port congestion. However, there are a large number of containers on ships that need to be unloaded at ports. The available space was cleared but was filled up by imported containers unloaded from the vessels right after. There are some containers still cannot be picked up in the closed area, according to some of our clients. It seems it will take more than few months for the ports on the West coast to resume normal operations. It is the bloody truth in the west coast.

On the east coast, the world largest shipping line, Maersk whose subsidiary -- APM Terminals announced that they will operate a new deep-water container port and intermodal rail facility in Plaquemines port, Louisiana. After six months of negotiations, Plaquemines Ports and Docklands (PPHTD) and APM Terminals signed an agreement. The port is still in the early stage of development but it will cater to the needs of importers and exporters, connecting railways, highways, inland rivers and aviation and other multimodal transport lines. The new terminal will have a water depth of 50 feet (15.24 meters), a coastline of 8,200 feet (2.5 kilometers) and 1,000 acres of space. The first phase of the port will be built into a large port that can reliably berth 22,000 TEU super mega container ships and leave room for expansion. The terminal land is located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, about fifty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF railway will directly reach the port. In addition, it can provide inland river container transportation services from Plaquemines port to the other inland ports in the Midwest. After the completion of this container terminal, American Patriot Holdings (APH) shall run regular service providing 2,375 TEU ships in the downstream of the Mississippi River, and 1,800 TEU ships in the upstream so all containers can be effectively connected.  Wim Lagaay, CEO of APM Terminals North America, said: "We see a great opportunity to compile a new supply chain transportation guide for American importers and exporters. Exporters are looking for competitive ports to deliver products outbound and importers are looking for more routes to reach inland markets in the southern and midwestern United States."

It seems that in order to solve the failure of port capacity on the West coast, beside of private own Maersk’s layout and establishment of intermodal transportation of inland rivers and railways on the east coast, the Biden administration wants to utilize governmental power to push carriers to travel longer distances to avoid west coast by going through the Panama Canal to the ports on the east coast which is processing now. Due to serious congestion at the Port of Savannah, the fourth largest container port in the United States, the Georgia Port Authority stated that it will establish multiple temporary container yards in inland areas to ease the pressure of insufficient cargo storage space. It is planned to use The Statesboro airport, about an hour's drive west of Savannah, as a temporary container yard to alleviate the lack of port infrastructure capacity caused by the surge in transportation demand. The airport will start receiving containers on November 22. Store containers on an unused runway in the airport. Up to 900 containers can be stored at a time, which can hold approximately 78,000 TEUs a year. These efforts are all to alleviate the stagnation of ports infrastructure for decades! It is hoped that the US$1.75 trillion of the Biden administration's "Build Back Better Act" can completely improve all key issues in American ports, railroads, highways, airports, and inland waterways. Let’s wait and see.

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