International Maritime

to demand from e-commerce businesses and the port ’ s intermodal rail reach into Midwest markets . CSX Transportation offers three-day service from its intermodal rail hub adjacent to Baltimore ’ s Seagirt Marine Terminal to the railroad ’ s Bedford Park hub near Chicago .

The Class I railroad will be able to offer even more intermodal capacity to and from Baltimore after raising the Howard Street Tunnel to allow for double-stacked intermodal trains , the completion of which is expected in 2025 .

The closure also came just weeks after a leadership transition at the Maryland Port Administration . Newly appointed executive director Jonathan Daniels will guide the authority through the recovery and reopening of the port , as well as a massive greenfield expansion . Along with a densification of the Seagirt terminal that will allow it to handle 1.2 million TEUs annually , up from 800,000 TEUs at present , the new Sparrows Point Container Terminal will raise the port ’ s overall annual handling capacity to 2.5 million TEUs when it opens in 2028 .

‘ A remarkably complex operation ’

In the short term , the port authority is implementing workarounds to handle vessels on a limited basis ahead of a planned full reopening of the 50-foot-deep , 800-footwide ship channel to vessel traffic by the end of May .

The US Army Corps of Engineers ( USACE ) said in a statement April 4 it now has “ a better understanding of the immense and complex work ” of removing the wreckage of the bridge , some of which is resting on top of the 9,962-TEU Dali , allowing the ship to be refloated .

“ These are ambitious timelines that may still be impacted .”

“ A fully opened federal channel remains our primary goal ,” Gen . Scott Spellmon said in the statement . “ These are ambitious timelines that may still be impacted by significant adverse weather conditions or changes in the complexity of the wreckage .”

Underscoring the difficulty of reopening Baltimore to ship traffic , Maryland Gov . Wes Moore said 4,000 tons of bridge debris will need to be cut into four pieces so they can be hauled up by the US Navy ’ s largest crane , which

Ocean carriers curb trans-Pacific skipped sailings while boosting capacity

By Bill Mongelluzzo blank sailings for April and May , Murphy cautioned that trusting such projections is risky because carriers are giving less advanced notice of canceled sailings than they did in the past . At present , the announced skipped sailings amount to only a 6.6 % reduction in total deployed capacity to the US in April and 5.4 % in May , according to Sea-Intelligence .

“ We caution putting too much faith in data six weeks out ,” Murphy said . “ And with the ongoing Red Sea crisis , I would be cautious trusting figures four to five weeks out , as the carriers are making more and more short-term adjustments .”

Meanwhile , on-time vessel performance from Asia to

Container carriers are blanking fewer trans-Pacific sailings than they did the previous two years as the longer voyages around the southern tip of Africa during the Red Sea hostilities continue to pull capacity from global trade lanes . They ’ re on track to increase capacity in the Asia – US trades to the highest level in 17 months in May .

“ The carriers are blanking much less this year , across the board , as the Red Sea crisis is very conveniently soaking up a large share of their excess capacity ,” Alan Murphy , CEO and founder of Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis , told the Journal of Commerce April 1 .

Carriers in March canceled sailings equal to 11.7 % of total vessel capacity from Asia to the US West and East coasts , down from 21.5 % in the same month last year and 29 % in March 2022 , according to Sea-Intelligence data . In February , carriers blanked 19.4 % of capacity , down from 41.5 % in 2023 and 29.6 % in 2022 .

Although container lines have scheduled even fewer

Trans-Pacific vessel reliability slips in February

Percentage of on-time arrivals of container ships . Ships are considered late if they arrive one calendar day or more after schedule

60 %

50 %

40 % 10 % 30 %

20 %

10 %

L

L Apr Jul Oct Jan 2023 Apr Jul Oct , 2023Jan 2024

Source : Sea-Intelligence Maritime Analysis

Asia to US West Coast Asia to US East Coast

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18 Journal of Commerce | April 22 , 2024 www . joc . com