East beating west – a tale of two (US) coasts
And no change anytime soon
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Problems at US west coast ports, expansion of both the Panama and Suez canals and the general growth of trade make a compelling argument for Canada to invest in a gateway container hub on its Atlantic coast. Its mission would be straightforward: to replicate the sort of success that the port of Prince Rupert has had on Canada’s Pacific coast – capture 10-15% of the container traffic arriving from Europe and from Asia through Suez.”
Comment on this article
Andy Lane
July 15, 2015 at 11:17 amThe challenge for Sydney, and Halifax, is that there is no large cargo hinterland within close proximity. As a gateway for the US/Canada mid-west, it is too far away (compared to NY/NJ, Norfolk, etc and therefore the rail intermodal would be significantly higher.
A ship from Panama would need to extend sailing distance and time to reach Nova Scotia, and therefore also incur additional costs. For a ship crossing the Atlantic, it would not save any costs through calling in Nova Scotia, as it would still need to call at ports down the US east coast.
If Nova Scotia offered supply chain value as a gateway, then Halifax would be handling many times more than the 400,000 TEU it seems today.
“Build and they will come” is a dangerous strategy, if built it will likely become a white-elephant.
BN
July 17, 2015 at 8:00 pmThe Atlantic Gateway already exists in Canada, we refer to is as Montreal.