By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOT Seaports up and down the eastern seaport are anticipating what impact the expansion of the Panama Canal will have on their ports when this enlarged all-water route between Asia and the US East Coast opens in 2014. Already many ports on the East Coast, including the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey (PANYNJ); South Carolina State Ports Authority (SCSPA), Virginia Ports Authority (VPA); Port of Jacksonville (JAXPORT), Maryland Port Administration; the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA); Georgia Ports Authority; Massachusetts Port Authority, and Port of Miami, have signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with the Panama Canal Authority (ACP). By signing MOUs, the ACP and its US East Coast port partners agree to work together to promote trade to the United States via the Panama Canal. This could include joint advertising programs, data interchange, and competitive market analyses of the shipping industry. “The MOUs demonstrate each organization’s commitment to encouraging increased trade and meeting the needs of today’s maritime and shipping industries,” reports ACP Administrator/CEO Alberto Aleman Zubieta. Besides establishing a strong commercial and economic bond that will further strengthen their relationship by sharing information and collaborating to promote both the canal and the ports, these seaports have much to gain. For one, after this expansion, the Panama Canal will be able to handle vessels of cargo capacity up to 13,000 TEUs. Currently, it can only handle vessels up to about 5,000 TEU. Up until recently, most port facilities along the eastern seaboard were designed to handle “Panamax” size ships, the ships that most frequently called at their seaports. While the economic downturn has made an enormous impact on the volumes of cargo embarking and disembarking these ports, officials are confident the level of trade will eventually escalate, thereby bringing boatloads of goods to their shores via post-Panamax ship transiting the expanded Panama Canal. To be ready, however, their own facilities needed to be expanded to accommodate these enormous ships. Much of the work has been done, and port officials are now anxious to see what the future holds. READY TO GO At SCSPA’s Port of Charleston, for example, spokesman Byron D. Miller emphasizes his port already has one of the deepest channels in the Southeast. “Charleston sees great opportunity with the Panama Canal expansion,” he says. “And we’re the next big deal in distribution.” Currently, among some of the nation’s leading industrial developers are installing more than 20 million square feet of Class A industrial spec space near the Port of Charleston. The development represents a solid commitment in the port by these developers and rubber stamps their confidence in the port’s future. With as much as 70% of the container cargo from the West Coast’s major ports destined for locations east of the Mississippi River, SCSPA officials are convinced Charleston will attract its share of the traffic. For one, the port has a draft of -47 feet in the entrance channel at low tide and -45 feet inside the harbor, plus a 5-6 foot tidal lift. With this draft, Charleston can already efficiently handle fully-loaded 8-000-TEU ships. “We have the deepest water in the southeast,” Miller says. “We do not have to wait for a permit to get things done and are not stymied in environmental reviews. We can accommodate these large ships today.” To that affect, Charleston’s three container terminals are equipped with 21 dockside cranes, 20 of which are post-Panamax or super post-Panamax in size. At a depth of 50 feet, the Port of Virginia offers even deeper water for post-Panamax vessels. Its Norfolk International Terminal (NIT) also boosts six Suez-class cranes. “We have completely renovated NIT, our largest terminal,” reports Joe Harris, VPA spokesman. “We have also finished the first phase of renovating our on-dock rail. The second phase should