The Port of Baltimore is preparing workarounds to start handling containers and other ocean freight on a limited basis within the next four weeks ahead of a planned full reopening to vessel traffic by the end of May. The expedited reopening marks a rapid recovery for Baltimore following the vessel collision and bridge collapse that closed its main shipping channel early last week.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, other ports along the US East Coast continue to process diverted Baltimore-bound cargo with little to no impact on their operations. Even so, ocean carriers are pushing diversion-related fees onto shippers during Baltimore\u2019s closure.<\/p>\n
The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) said in a statement Thursday it expects to clear the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge from Baltimore\u2019s 50-foot-deep shipping channel by the end of May, \u201crestoring port access to normal capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was unclear in the immediate aftermath of the March 26 collision of the 9,962-TEU Dali into the bridge how long it would take for the port to reopen. Gen. Scott Spellmon said in the statement the USACE now has \u201ca better understanding of the immense and complex work\u201d of removing the 4,000 tons of debris resting on top of the Dali, allowing it to be refloated.<\/p>\n
\u201cA fully opened federal channel remains our primary goal,\u201d Spellmon said. \u201cThese are ambitious timelines that may still be impacted by significant adverse weather conditions or changes in the complexity of the wreckage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahead of the full reopening, the USACE said it will open a 35-foot-deep channel by the end of April that will support one-way vessel traffic into Baltimore harbor. That channel will support the restart of a container-on-barge service offered by Columbia Coastal Transport that shuttles between the Port of Virginia, which has been receiving ships diverted from Baltimore, and Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore.<\/p>\n
The service uses two US-flagged barges of approximately 900-TEU capacity. Transit time from Norfolk to Baltimore is approximately two days.<\/p>\n
In addition, the 35-foot channel will allow some roll-on\/roll-off (ro\/ro) vessels to resume calls at Baltimore. Baltimore\u2019s Dundalk Marine Terminal and Fairfield Marine Terminal, which handle the bulk of the Baltimore\u2019s ro\/ro vessels, are also cut off to vessel traffic, forcing ro\/ro vessels to divert to the TradePoint Atlantic logistics facility located outside the port\u2019s inner harbor.<\/p>\n
The container-on-barge service would complement inter-port rail services that are moving Baltimore-bound ocean containers diverted to the Port of New York and New Jersey back to Seagirt for local pickup. Norfolk Southern is working on a similar service that will bring ocean containers to Virginia\u2019s Front Royal inland port, where they can be trucked into Maryland.<\/p>\n
Details please refer to JOC news.<\/em><\/p>\n Source:<\/p>\n Angell, M. (2024, April 5). Baltimore preps for limited port reopening by end of April<\/i>. Journal of Commerce. https:\/\/www.joc.com\/article\/baltimore-preps-limited-port-reopening-end-april_20240405.html<\/p>\n The Port of Baltimore is preparing workarounds to start handling containers and other ocean freight on a limited basis within the next four weeks ahead of a planned full reopening to vessel traffic by the end of May. The expedited reopening marks a rapid recovery for Baltimore following the vessel collision and bridge collapse that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[84,83],"class_list":["post-2956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-maritime","tag-us-ports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2957,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions\/2957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}