WCA September 2014

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Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2014
From the Americas
The Panama Canal Expansion
Trade-dependent port cities along the
US Pacific Coast brace for a future of big
cargo ships and an improved route to the
Atlantic
“As construction crews 5,000 miles away are working to
widen the Panama Canal to allow much larger ships to sail
straight to the East Coast, this historic port city and others
along the West Coast are doing everything they can to
avoid becoming superfluous.”
Dionne Searcey of the New York Times was reporting from
Tacoma, Washington, a port whose officials know that that
by the time the “new” Panama Canal opens in 2016, plying
the oceans will be a fleet of cargo ships so big they will not
be able to squeeze through even the wider channel.
Determined to retain their rich import business, Tacoma,
Seattle and other West Coast ports are spending billions to
be ready to accommodate the ships and keep themselves
competitive in the rivalry for foreign trade. (“West Coast
Ports Scramble to Keep Big Cargo Vessels,” 27th June)
Standing among the jagged rebar and broken concrete of
a $22 million renovation to shore up the port’s Pier 3, the
senior project manager for the Port of Tacoma, Trevor
Thornsley, told the Times: “The ships continue to get bigger,
the cranes need to get bigger, and the docks need to be
able to handle them.”
Ms Searcey wrote that the work going forward in Tacoma,
which “likes to call itself the most trade-dependent city
in the nation,” is among dozens of projects under way
across the US in response to major changes in the world of
container imports from Asia.
“Everybody in the supply chain from the manufacturer to
the end consumer – that entire supply chain is changing,”
Tay Yoshitani, chief executive of the Port of Seattle, told her.
“The port industry is trying to make adjustments.”
Seattle had already spent $1.2 billion through 2012 to
upgrade its port facilities, and an additional outlay of
$5 million to upgrade Terminal 5 has been approved.
Traditionally, America’s West Coast ports are the gateway to
the rest of the country for the growing supply of goods from
China and Hong Kong. The ports in Tacoma, Seattle and
– in California – Oakland, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and
elsewhere, offer much shorter sailing times than Gulf Coast
and East Coast ports. But for shippers of some goods, Ms
Searcey observed, “the web of logistics, including trucks
and railroads,” is less expensive if they go through the
Panama Canal.
While the widened Panama Canal will allow an all-water
route for big ships to the East Coast, the project – originally
slated for completion this year – has been plagued with
construction delays. And in June the authorities had yet
to announce toll charges for passing ships. In the end,
Ms Searcey pointed out, it might be too expensive for some
ships to use.
It is also possible, she wrote, that railroads moving goods
from West Coast ports could lower their fees to make it
more economical for ships to avoid the Panama Canal
route.
John Martin, who works as an economic consultant for
several ports, told her: “The uncertainty as to what’s going
to happen with rates is huge.”
Other concerns for the American port cities originate
farther from home. Ocean routes could shift as Asian
manufacturing continues to move from China to countries
to the south, like Singapore and Vietnam, which are
closer by sea to US East Coast ports through the Suez
Canal than to West Coast ports across the Pacific.
 A new competitive threat has emerged 500 miles north
of the US border with Canada. Tacoma and Seattle
are losing market share to the Port of Prince Rupert in
British Columbia: just six years old and already doing
brisk business with goods headed for the Midwest
United States, noted Ms Searcey.
“For trade with China, Prince Rupert’s appeal is
proximity,” she wrote. It requires two to three fewer
days at sea from China than the US Pacific ports. And
analysts told the Times that Canadian railroads are
offering bargain rates to ship goods from Prince Rupert
to cities in the US Midwest. Moreover, cargo carriers
debarking in Canada can avoid taxes imposed by
Washington.
 In the spirit of the common enterprise – unity and
strength in the face of competition from Canada
and elsewhere – Tacoma and Seattle have forged
a new alliance. This year, for the first time, the two
ports obtained permission from the Federal Maritime
Commission to share information on operations and
rates. They are coordinating lobbying tactics as well
as construction projects to prevent duplication of
effort, officials said, and are researching other ways to
cooperate.
“In the past 60 years we’ve truly been cutthroat,”
Stephanie Bowman, a commissioner for the Port of
Seattle, told the Times’s Dionne Searcey. “[But now]
we’ve been able to work together and put aside our
historical competition.”
Energy
 According to the Michigan Public Service Commission,
the cost of producing wind energy in the state was
down from more than $100 a megawatt hour in 2009
to as little as $50 per MWh in 2012, making it about
half as expensive than originally projected by utility
companies.
Wind is now the primary source of new renewable
energy in Michigan, home to some 120 companies that
supply wind components and employ 4,000 people.
A state law that requires 10 per cent of electricity
produced to come from renewable sources by the end
BigStockPhoto.com Photographer: Aispl