By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOTIf there ever was a boxing match between seaports, we’d probably see the Port of Baltimore and Port of Virginia in the ring. Both are strong contenders to attract increased business to their seaports once the economy gets on a steady course. In fact, the Port of Baltimore is already making some impressive punches. Let’s begin with Mediterranean Shipping Company’s (MSC) 9,178 TEU ship dubbed the Bruxelles, which called at the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal in mid July. Maryland Port Administration (MPA) officials remark this enormous ship is only a sign of bigger vessels yet to come. In fact, the port received another post-Panamax containership, the 9,200-TEU MSC Sindy, on August 2. To date, the Bruxelles and the Sindy are the largest containerships to call at the Port of Baltimore. The Bruxelles, alone weighs about 107,000 gross tons, and is 1,011 feet in length and 138 feet wide. But beginning next year when the Port of Baltimore’s new 50-foot container berth is completed at Seagirt, the port will be able to accommodate fully-loaded ships like the Bruxelles and Sindy with ease, and even larger ones. “Large ships like these need 50-feet of water depth in order to bring in their maximum loads,” says MPA Executive Director James J. White. When the new 50-foot container berth is completed next year at the port’s Seagirt Terminal, MPA’s Port of Baltimore will be one of only two East Coast ports to have water depth capable of handling such massive vessels. The other is the Virginia Port Authority’s (VPA) Port of Norfolk, which is why this puts the Port of Virginia into the fighting ring. The Port of New York/New Jersey also provides a 50-foot channel, but bridges/overpasses – deemed sky restrictions – prevent the large ships from taking advantage of the port’s deep water. Given the fact that only about 250 land miles separate them, Baltimore and Norfolk are especially keen competitors in attracting steamship line rotations for post-Panamax ships looking for East Coast ports of call, particularly once the Panama Canal widening project is completed in 2014. The Panama Canal widening project will make it possible for the large post-Panamax ships to transit the Panama Canal and call on the U.S. East Coast rather than calling on the U.S. West Coast where shipments are then trucked or railed across the United States to their destinations. The large ships already calling at the ports come via the Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea. The Port of Baltimore’s new 50-foot Seagirt container berth, which is planned to include four Super Post-Panamax cranes, is scheduled to be completed in August 2012. When completed, the new berth will accommodate ships carrying up to 14,000 TEU containers. Driver for Growth MPA officials and those with Ports America Chesapeake, with whom MPA has entered into a private/public partnership (“P3”) to develop the berth, expect the project to be a real driver in accommodating larger vessels and attracting more cargo to and from Baltimore. The 50-foot berth is a key element of the 50-year agreement between the MPA and Ports America Chesapeake to lease and operate the state-owned 200-acre Seagirt Marine Terminal that began in 2010. MPA’s White calls the P3 “good for the port” and adds that the “50-foot berth will be a game changer.” Christopher Lee, managing director of Highstar Capital, the independent investment fund that owns Ports America Chesapeake and leases the Seagirt Terminal at the Port of Baltimore, comments that Maryland officials were “forward thinking in creating the P3.” Last year Ports America Chesapeake acquired $334 million in funding to invest in necessary infrastructure at Seagirt, which, in these lean times, is saving the State of Maryland hundreds of millions of dollars it would have had to invest in capital improvements. Mark Montgomery, President and CEO Ports America Chesapeake, explains to AJOT that his company aimed to finish the new berth