No single plan will be right for every seaport

After sharing a survey that shows U.S. ports plan big investments in capital projects, AAPA President and CEO Kurt Nagle, told LM that each gateway has its own set of goals and requirements.

“There are fewer than a dozen U.S. seaports that are currently able to accommodate ‘mega vessels,’” he says. “It’s definitely not necessary that all ports need to be able to handle the largest ships currently in service and/or planned.”

Nagle notes that each of the 50 states relies on an average of 15 different seaports to handle their imports and exports, which means that the nation needs a diverse range of seaports on each of the three coasts and the Great Lakes.

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently deepening/widening a few U.S. seaport navigation channels and has additional studies underway.  Some ports, while likely not requiring depths of 50 feet or more, will need channels deeper than currently authorized, often to accommodate the cascading effect of new larger vessels calling at deeper ports and shifting slightly smaller vessels to other ports,” he says.

A number of seaports may not need to dredge past their current depths because they tend to specialize in cargoes that arrive on smaller ships that don’t need deeper channels, Nagle adds.

“These ports tend to be more concerned about maintaining their existing navigation depths and widths.  The busiest 59 U.S. seaports are dredged to their authorized and necessary channel depths only about 35% of the time, and far fewer channels are dredged to their authorized widths, which is necessary because ships are being built wider as well as deeper,” he says.

For our country to be internationally competitive, concludes Nagle, our system of ports needs to be able to accommodate a wide range of vessels. 

“While harbor deepening may be necessary from time to time at many ports to handle increasingly large ships being placed into service for economies of scale, there is no ‘standard’ that all navigation channels need to meet.  It’s based on each port’s market, cargo niche and needs.”