2/Ocean shipping containers do not typically venture far from the harbors. What most people see on the roads and highways are not intermodal containers, but 40 or 53ft trailers. The material from overseas is offloaded at sites close to the port and repacked for delivery.
3/When you hear about a truck shortage, it is not one of trucks & drivers. For a truck to load, it has to bring a chassis to load a container on. Usually, it has an empty to return. As the terminals are full, there is little room to store them, making moving boxes slow.
4/This delay in offloading the empty & loading a full one means that drayage drivers who normally make 2-3 trips a day, are only making 1. Adding more trucks & drivers does nothing to alleviate this, but only adds to the congestion & pushes drivers away due to less pay.
5/So, what is the solution?
The answer is simple, but requires coordination.
1️⃣ Identify a large area near the ports that can be used as a temporary empty storage yard.
2️⃣ Route drivers to facility to offload, check-in w/boxes (waive detention fees) & clear their chassis.
6/ Continued
3️⃣Activate National Guard or Reserve unit to initially staff & equipment facility to offload and track empties. This can be phased over to contract operation concurrently.
4️⃣Less boxes in terminals & no need to offload chassis, the turnaround in ports will improve.
7/This will improve the throughput in the ports, but it will not help with the situation in the warehouses and distribution centers where the containers are going from the ports. They are at capacity, and working limited hours.
Action has to take place, simultaneously.
8/This is not new, as myself, @man_integrated and @typesfast have all advocated for actions similar to this.
@mattschrap@harbortruckers identified empty containers as the issue. We breakdown the discharge of ships, why empties are an issue & a proposed solution.
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1/The @Heritage has released Project 2025 which is entitled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. Basically it would be the next Trump administration policy guide. In it is a section on Maritime Policy (p.637-638). Let's take a moment and digest it.
2/A little short on history as MARAD came from the US Shipping Board created in 1916 and then via the US Maritime Commission.
What is also omitted is that MARAD was originally under the Commerce Dept and included @FMC_gov it is purview.
3/This statement is 💯% the wrong choice. While they are correct that MARAD does not regulate its industry, it makes no argument to transfer it to @DHSgov.
MARAD should be reorganized into an entity that has oversight of all maritime aspects, akin to the FAA over aviation.
A temporary jetty was constructed from concrete and landfill to extend out from the shore.
It was done under the supervision of the IDF.
2/The Spanish-flagged tug Echo 1 Open Arms delivered the barge of 200 tons of food from @WCKitchen via Cyprus.
Due to the shallow draft off the jetty the tug could not push the barge alongside.
This is why the US Army Trident pier will extend approximately 1800 feet out.
3/The barge was maneuvered by the use of two small RHIBs.
This is extremely difficult and danger due to the mass of the barge and the power of the RHIBs. Any current or wind would have precluded this operation.
2/According to the @DeptofDefense spokesperson it will take two weeks to construct.
Okay...but where are the causeways?
They are either in Virginia or onboard prepositioning ships at Diego Garcia or in the western Pacific.
These will need to be shipped and this takes time?
3/Also, the throughput of a barge ferry is ridiculously slow. While this may be enough to sustain a few hundred or thousand soldiers in an exercise, the population of Gaza is over 2 million.
This is going to require a lot of cargo to move quickly and efficiently.
1/A quick snapshot of all containerships over 16,000 TEUs (or Ultra Large Container Vessels). You can see that they are used exclusively between Europe & Asia as US ports cannot accommodate them, either due to water/air draft or crane capacity.
2/Only a few ports can handle them - Tangier in Africa; Algeciras, Genoa, Piraeus, Istanbul, Port Said & Gioia Tauro in the Med; Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Felixstowe & Antwerp in Northern Europe & in Asia, multiple ports in China, Singapore, Columbo & Khalifa.
3/Noticeably missing are any US ports - on either the East, Gulf or West Coasts.
The Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV) were built to just fit in the Suez, hence 399.99 meters in length.
But now with the diversion caused by the #Houthi, questions arise about the ULCVs.
1/MT Marlin Luanda, a 110,000 deadweight ton tanker and owned by a company in the Marshall-Is and flagged in the same, sailed from Greece after loading a cargo of Russian naphtha from tankers via the Black Sea.
The cargo was not sanctioned and sold under the price cap.
2/The ship identified its destination as Singapore but that was probably not its final one.
Over the past year, it has operated over an extensive area, typical of Suezmax/LR2 tanker.
3/The ship has a valuation of $61.3M and its cargo of naphtha was probably similar. A value of $120 million would lead to a war risk of approximately $1.2M for the ship if at 1%.