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Short Sea Shipping is a current topic, which is
getting a lot of lip service, but not enough action.
We first reported on this topic in the Winter 2003/2004 issue
of NOIBN, but not a lot action has taken place in the last couple
years. Fortunately the
topic will not go away, and periodic articles keep the subject
alive.
Years ago, we referred to this concept as
feeder service. A few
decades ago we used this type of service, but it declined in favor,
because we wanted speed and cheap.
We got the speed in trucking and the cheap in government
railroad subsidies. No
longer did we want to load cargo in the Great Lakes on feeder
vessels and transload onto larger vessels in Eastern Canada. No longer did we want to load barges in our major rivers and
transload onto an oceangoing vessel or load the entire barge on
board the ship (LASH (Lighter Aboard SHip)).
Now try to get a trucker.
Can the trucker get diesel?
Can the trucker afford diesel?
Can the trucker get a driver?
It’s even difficult to get a trucker for short runs for
your cargo or full containers.
What about railroads? They
are at their limit as evidenced by their service or lack thereof.
In their defense, they did a fantastic job in recovering from
last year’s peak season fiasco.
Many people bet that the Far East international trade
congestion would not subside after the peak season, because of
vastly increased transpacific cargo. While last year’s peak season congestion did subside more
than many expected, the peak season surcharge has been extended this
year to the end of January 2006.
Speculate, if you want, that this is just a money making
scheme by the ocean carriers, but it may help to force buyers and
sellers to spread out their imports and exports over a longer period
of time and during a less congested time.
Would short sea shipping alleviate some of
these problems? Certainly,
and more. Consider the
huge ships coming off the construction yards.
Consider 8,000, 12,000, 15,000 teu (twenty-foot equivalent
units). That means that each ship will hold that many twenty foot
containers or half that many forty foot containers or a combination
thereof. Not all ocean
ports will accommodate ships that size.
Why spend millions and millions of dollars dredging all the
ocean ports for the bigger ships, when some ports have a natural
draft for the huge ships and short sea shipping could bring cargo
and containers from the other ports to the huge ships, saving the
cost of dredging and simply using the natural deep draft ports?
What about expanding the barge service on the
central US rivers? Expand
the use of river barges. Expand
the use of rake barges capable of moving in the central US rivers
and moving into certain areas of the Caribbean.
What about expanding these barges into the area of food grade
bulk cargoes? All of these short sea shipping ideas will take pressure off
the railroads, and relieve truck problems and traffic congestion.
Hopefully short sea shipping will happen sooner than later.
SCWWTA. The
South Central Wisconsin World Trade Association (SCWWTA) held its
first meeting of the season on September 29, 2005 at the Belwah Café
in the Beloit Inn in downtown Beloit.
The subject was Wood. An
excellent panel presented this hot topic and a very interested group
of attendees provided very good interaction.
The next meeting will be on October 27, 2005 at
the same venue. The
dinner program this month will be presented by a personally licensed
customhouse broker. It
will provide an importer’s perspective on C-TPAT, FAST and CSI.
C-TPAT is Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism.
It is designed to secure the supply chain. We will look at how it is working from the importer’s
viewpoint. FAST is a
Customs program to provide supply chain security and expedited
release of qualifying shipments between the US and Canada and the US
and Mexico. How well is it working?
CSI is Container Security Initiative.
The focus of this program is on the foreign port of loading.
How are these performance measures working?
TAMI. The
Transportation Association of Milwaukee Inc. is holding its
semi-annual Bingo Bash at noon at Potawatomi on October 16, 2005. The Packers are NOT playing.
The cost is $20.00 for six cards and dauber and personal
Potawatomi employee assistance.
Please see their website at www.tami-mke.org
for more information and check out other programs and the award
winning NOIBN. |
