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February 5, 2008
U.S. Not Ready for Panana Canal Expansion
. . . and if we don't get our act together, it will cost all of us, in the form of higher prices than is necessary; the Dallas Morning News has an extended piece worth your attention. A tidbit follows:
That lack of preparedness could mean higher prices than necessary for imported goods, costly delays in moving U.S. exports out of the country – and economic benefits for Caribbean seaports that might otherwise flow to Houston, Corpus Christi and inland to Dallas.Port directors, shipping company managers, government leaders and financiers at a conference in Tampa, Fla, last week described a slew of problems facing the ports and transportation companies on the Gulf and East coasts as they seek to capitalize on what should be a golden opportunity. . .
The Panamanians are moving ahead to double the capacity of the canal by 2014, said Tampa Port executive director Richard Wainio, "and we're all sitting around not knowing what we're going to do."
Bernard Grossglose, chief executive of the South Carolina Ports Authority, said many U.S. ports need deeper channels to accommodate a giant new class of container ships that will use the expanded Panama Canal. But channel-dredging projects typically take as long as 20 years from proposal to completion because of regulatory and funding delays, he said.
"Panama is like lightning compared to what we deal with," he said. . . .
Shippers like ZIM American already take their largest container ships to the deeper port of Kingston, Jamaica, said ZIM sales representative Thomas Haeussner, where they offload containers to smaller vessels that then sail to Houston, Tampa, Mobile, Ala., and other Gulf Coast ports. . . .
More shipping companies will follow that example if U.S. ports don't solve their dredging problems, said Robert West of Global Insight, a Massachusetts forecasting firm.
"The shippers are going to go into trans-shipment in the Caribbean in a big way," Mr. West said.
Mr. Wainio, who used to work with the Panama Canal Authority, said that would lead to unnecessarily higher prices for U.S. consumers.
"The cargo will move," he said. "But you're not going to get the economies of scale, so you're going to be paying more than you should." . . .
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