Commentary

By Jeremy Masters

“ Build it, and they will come,” is not a realistic motto in terminal investment.

The huge injection of ships with capacity greater than 18,000 TEUs arriving over the next three years means that their traditional homes, most notably on the Asia – Europe trade, will not be large enough to accommodate them.

The search is then on for new deepwater terminals on big ship routes, but also in new geographies. Carriers would prefer having access to a cluster of deepwater ports in a region to give them options, but by running hub-and-spoke systems they can also join a comparatively small number of big dots to build deployments for their biggest ships.

Either way, they will look at deploying efficient ship systems that maximize the amount of profitable cargo generated at the lowest cost to the ultimate market.

“ Build it, and they will come,” is not then a realistic motto in terminal investment, unless some key pillars of cargo access and service competitiveness are in place.

For ports / terminals wanting to attract ship systems over 18,000 TEUs, the first prerequisite is naturally the ability to accommodate ships of that size.

Most of the locations that have sufficient draft and access to extensive local and hinterland markets have already been pursued. This explains the concentration in Europe and Asia of ports taking the biggest ships, but highlights that the US— which obviously ticks all the boxes on available market— is lagging.

If we look at the routes for big ships today, there are still opportunities for new hubs en route. It makes sense, for instance, that India’ s Vizhinjam( particularly when it has greater rail connectivity) and various East Med hubs that have access to substantive local and regional business are vying for calls from big ship loops that are passing by. It’ s also easy to see in Vizhinjam’ s case how other ship systems for Africa and the East Coast of South America and Australia might start connecting there in tandem with Sri Lankan terminals.

Considering new geographies

Creative thinking will also be given by carriers to geographies not currently served— directly or en route— by the 18,000- to 24,000-TEU category. The attention will be on those that are well-positioned to service both intra-regional and inter-regional transshipment business. Indeed, these volumes have the potential to swing a port from the modest leagues based on local and hinterland cargo generation to the big leagues based on total throughput. For those ports,“ location, location, location” might be the mantra rather than direct market access.

Locations that are on the tip of a continent or adjacent to the Suez or Panama canals are good places to look as ship systems pass by to multiple continents.

South Africa, for instance, is one of the prime crossroads, with deployments linking North / Southeast Asia and India with the West Coast of Africa and the East Coast of South America and, for the time being, Europe. Durban has a sizeable local and hinterland market. South African ports have the credentials to be superhubs serving local, regional and deep-sea transshipment markets. Wider evolution on government / private ownership partnerships will help facilitate faster growth and, as for many ports these days, landside infrastructure development to catch up with cargo growth.

The Caribbean is another major crossroads; 18,000- to 24,000-TEU deployments coming from Asia and the Middle East via the Med / Cape could bring flows into a North Caribbean hub providing regional services to the US Gulf, the East Coast of Mexico and Central America. Indeed, the hub concept is already modestly in place with smaller ships.

East Med and Red Sea hubs are, of course, being developed close to the Suez Canal.

Sites adjacent to the Panama Canal are also attractive. Of course, 18,000- to 24,000-TEU ships cannot transit the canal, but Manzanillo International Terminal on the Atlantic side can handle big ships, while other facilities can be developed at each end of the canal.

If we look again on the Caribbean side, a South Caribbean hub could service the same trades as the North Caribbean hub and connect with North Europe services transiting the canal to the West Coast of South America. In a similar vein, a big ship system ex-Asia could operate between Mexico’ s Lazaro Cardenas and a new hub in Panama or Colombia’ s Pacific Coast.

The deluge of big ships coming will inevitably create innovative new ship systems linking those ports / terminals that can take them. Terminal operators that can provide better capability than their regional neighbors will have a leg up. Indeed, now is a pivotal time to gain a long-term competitive advantage.

email: jeremy @ shippingmastershk. com

52 Journal of Commerce | September 7, 2026 www. joc. com