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It conducted a study showing East Coast ports likely would benefit from an expanded Panama Canal. It looks like even bigger ships are com-


ing. Is Virginia ready?


Short-term shift/long-term gain Just two weeks after the Panama Canal


expansion opened, Virginia saw the largest ship ever to reach its terminals. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. launched the first Neo- Panamax vessel to transit the expanded canal in a new service rotation connecting ports in China and South Korea with New York, Norfolk and Savannah. The MOL Benefactor, a 10,100-TEU


ship, began calling at the Port of Virginia as part of a weekly rotation that includes ships as big as 10,300-TEUs. Previously, the larg- est ships Virginia handled were 9,600 TEUs. “We have been handling the larger


ships for quite some time, those that have transited through the Suez Canal,” says Art Moye, executive vice president of the Vir- ginia Maritime Association. “The expanded Panama Canal opens up additional opportu- nities because some of the carriers will find an all-water service to the East Coast could


be more economical than … calling on the West Coast and having the East Coast cargo [transported by rail]. “It definitely opens up opportunities for


us, but I think a lot of people were anticipat- ing a huge tidal wave of cargo and ships on the day it opened,” says Moye. The global container industry has been


facing sluggish growth, and so East Coast ports are unlikely to see a huge short-term surge. The Port of Virginia itself saw only a 1.1 percent growth in the number of TEUs it handled in the first seven months of 2016, a drop from the 10 percent growth it saw the previous year. In the short-term, there are signs the expanded canal is shifting trade patterns. Maersk Line, the world’s biggest


shipping line, already has shifted one of its services visiting the East Coast ports of Newark, Norfolk and Baltimore through the Panama Canal. The change will shorten transit times between the East Coast and Far East Asia, possibly by close to a week, according to the Journal of Commerce. The service, however, already was visiting the Port of Virginia. In addition, more shippers are using


the Panama Canal for its all-water routes between Asia and the U.S. — and that could be a good sign for the future of East Coast ports. In July, the Panama Canal already was the leading route for all-water container services between the Far East and the East Coast, capturing 57 percent of the market share, according to maritime industry analyst Alphaliner, compared with 48 percent at the beginning of the year. Long term, the expanded Panama


Canal could have a profound impact on East Coast ports, according to a 2015 study by The Boston Consulting Group and the transportation company C.H. Robinson. The study found that the expanded canal could shift as much as 10 percent of con- tainer traffic between East Asia and the U.S. from West Coast to East Coast ports by 2020. A shift of that size would be double the cargo volume the ports of Savannah and Charleston are handling now, the study points out. The study found the three ports most


likely to see a positive effect are the biggest on the East Coast: New York, Georgia and Virginia. And as shipping lines move to larger and larger ships, ports with deep


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