If you happened to be driving along the Belt Parkway on Friday morning, July 15, rounding the bend at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge you might have seen two giant ships, laden with 20-foot containers, inbound. These were the MOL Beyond and Chongqing, two neo-Panamax vessels on their maiden voyages to the Port of New York and New Jersey. “Neo-Panamax” means that the ships were built specifically to fit through the new, wider locks of the Panama Canal, which reopened this past June.
MOL Beyond, from Tokyo-based Mitsui OSK Lines, went straight to Global Container Terminal (GCT) Bayonne, the only terminal east of the Bayonne Bridge able to host the largest container ships now transiting the Panama Canal. The smaller Chongqing, from South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping, squeaked under the Bayonne Bridge and continued on to Maher Terminals on Newark Bay.
Two weeks later, on July 29, another massive maiden arrived in New York for the first time in the form of the container ship Hyundai Saturn, which docked at GCT Bayonne.
This is the dawn of a new era of giant container ships transporting goods to and from the Port of New York and New Jersey. It was only a month ago that the very first neo-Panamax vessel arrived here after transiting the Panama Canal: at 10,100 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units), the MOL Benefactor was trumpeted as the largest ship ever seen in New York Harbor.
Also 10,100-TEU vessels, the MOL Beyond and the Hyundai Saturn are part of the new NYX service operated by the G6 Alliance, comprising the shipping lines APL, Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, MOL, NYK Line, and Orient Overseas Container Line. Shipping alliances enable companies to share vessels for greater efficiency.
The other big visitor to New York Harbor last month, the Chongqing, is one of seven 6,655 TEU ships replacing 4,500 TEU ships operated by the CKYHE (COSCO, K Line, Yang Ming, Hanjin, and Evergreen Line) Alliance. According to The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, “Hanjin Shipping has begun to rotate larger ships to the Port of New York and New Jersey now that the new Panama Canal locks are complete… to meet operational and commercial demands as the peak shipping season gets underway.”
After the project to deepen New York Harbor’s navigational channels to 50 feet is completed later this summer, and the Bayonne Bridge is raised late next year, even larger container ships, known as post-Panamax vessels and sized up to 14,000 TEUs, will arrive in New York Harbor.
Industry leaders say now that the expanded Panana Canal is open, New York Harbor will take shipping business from the West Coast. Already, said Chris Clott, chair of marine transportation and logistics at SUNY Maritime College, “LA lost a little bit and New York had a big gain.”
According to Rahul Sharan, a shipping analyst at Drewry consultants who was quoted in World Maritime News shortly before the new Panama Canal locks opened, “The US is the largest importer of containerized cargo. A total of 60% of US population lives in the East Coast whereas most of the cargo is being discharged at South California ports. At present, Los Angeles and Long Beach have almost monopoly for all import cargoes, largely coming from Asia. Once the locks are open, US East Coast (USEC) ports will pose a competition to the West Coast ports, at least in principle (ignoring infrastructure bottlenecks on USEC).”
Ed Kelly, executive director of the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey, elaborates. “There will be an increase of cargo diverted from the West Coast,” he told WaterWire. “Right now, a lot of cargo comes to New York City cross country from the West Coast via intermodal [rail] transport. That’s expensive. If they can convert some of this intermodal business to all-water business, New York shipping will see gains.”
It’s the expected infrastructure bottlenecks that have regional shipping experts worried.
“I used the pig in the python analogy,” Mr. Clott said. “It’s all going to happen in these brief spurts, when these larger vessels will necessitate longer loading/unloading times. Security will increase; so will the time through the gates.”
“The gate is the chokepoint,” Mr. Kelly agreed. “The ships won’t necessarily require more longshoremen. The yield per longshoreman is actually better, because you get more moves per hour because the crane is in place. You’re moving more containers at one setting. But we’re grossly inefficient in our gate operations. Terminal gates are open less than half the day only five days a week.” Mr. Kelly predicts a shift at New York and New Jersey terminals toward gate traffic 24/7.
Mr. Clott is concerned about what happens to cargo in transit beyond the terminal gates.
“We’re going to have to think through some options,” he said. “The containers get out of the port and go on to overloaded local streets in New Jersey that spill onto the thruway and the turnpike and it’s a mess. The terminals can invest in state-of-the-art automated equipment, but they can’t change what lies just outside the terminal.”
Mr. Kelly keeps it all in perspective. “What we’re dealing with is the continued evolution of containerization,” he said, giving a little history lesson. “The very first container ship left Port Newark in April 1956, and it carried100 TEUs. In 1972 the Japanese Tobimaru had 1750 TEUs and everybody came out to look at it and said oh my god, they can’t get any bigger than that! We’re once again stretching physical capacity to accommodate ships. We’ve been doing this since Henry Hudson got here!”