SKIRMISHING between US east coast and west coast gateway advocates broke out at the Trans-Pacific Maritime conference in Long Beach this week as mega retailer Sears Holdings opted for the west coast over highly touted east coast ports.
Sears vice president Richard Smith said he favoured the west coast because California's intermodal infrastructure suited the Sears' distribution centre in Columbus, Ohio, despite the facility's proximity to the east coast.
"Even though the on-water time is the same, I get better transit, better delivery and comparable cost by bringing it into the west coast," Mr Smith said, reported Lloyd's List.
But South Carolina State Ports Authority vice-president John Wheeler argued that shippers can now deploy larger, more fuel-efficient ships through the Suez Canal to the east coast United States cheaper.
"Price trumps transit time in everything except for electronics and apparel," Mr Wheeler said.
The big talking point for a coast-to-coast switchover was whether the Panama Canal will offer shippers cost-savings to be a game changer, something Mr Wheeler has saying when he was doing the same job for the Port of Savannah two years ago.
Today, he is more intrigued by the growing role of the Suez Canal.
But Mr Smith said the answer will only come after the Panama Canal expansion, which will mean 13,000-TEUers can transit the waterway rather than the 5,000-TEU ships it can handle today. But that's some time off as project has been delayed till the end of next year after it was first scheduled to open this October.
"I for one don't believe the shippers will see a cost advantage. And if shippers don't see a cost advantage we're not going to change," he said.
CenterPoint Properties development chief Michael Murphy agreed with Mr Smith saying that its retail clients in the 50 million square feet his company has developed across the US rely more on the west coast intermodal system.
Mr Murphy's CenterPoint, owned by the California Public Employees Retirement System (CALPERS), has already developed nine million square feet in Joliet just west of Chicago service by western railways the Union Pacific and the BNSF.
"My general sense," said Mr Murphy, "is that the landbridge from the west coast to the Midwest is the mitigating factor to the tectonic shift of the Panama Canal".
WORLD SHIPPING
06 March 2014 - 20:23
Battle of US coasts breaks out at TPM over Panama and Suez roles
SKIRMISHING between US east coast and west coast gateway advocates broke out at the Trans-Pacific Maritime conference in Long Beach this week as mega retailer Sears Holdings opted for the west coast over highly touted east coast ports.
WORLD SHIPPING
06 March 2014 - 20:23
Battle of US coasts breaks out at TPM over Panama and Suez roles
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