The darling of West Coast container shipping

PORT OF PORTLAND I PROFILE

Albert Einstein is quoted as having once said: “In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.” The Port of Portland is surely the embodiment of that sentiment. In the midst of the container shipping crisis, the Port of Portland has found great opportunity. Bulk & Breakbulk Manager Michael Richards, fresh from signing on two major new international shipping lines, spoke to Richard Hagan about the surge of new business that the port is enjoying.

100 miles upriver from the Pacific Ocean, on the Columbia River, lies the Port of Portland. It shares the same North American coastline as the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles, both of which have made news headlines for several years due to major container shipping bottlenecks that have continued to affect both ports, with no end in sight.

Consequently, shippers with cargo destined for the US West Coast have increasingly sought alternatives to the long delays at these two ports and since 2021, the Port of Portland has emerged as a favourite option.

Building success through teamwork

According to Bulk & breakbulk Manager Michael Richards, one of the reasons that the Port of Portland has successfully capitalised on this opportunity is the excellence of the staff in the port’s marine department.

“We have a very seasoned and skilled marine department,” he revealed. “They have strong backgrounds including EPC procurement, freight forwarding, shipping line administration and even former Coast Guard personnel.

“We work hard together,” he added. “We’ve put the effort in and we’ve developed a team focus in which we celebrate the wins together. We’re recognising the fruits of our labour now.”

Mr Richards also highlighted the port’s skilled and highly motivated unionised labour force on the dock as being another reason for the port’s success.

“The labour issues we’ve had in the past have been completely resolved and they are such an asset now. You can sense the excitement from the labour force on the dock when new cargo comes in; you can feel it in the air.”

The return of the big box ships

Due to its location, the Port of Portland faces inescapable challenges in attracting container cargo customers. Chief amongst these is that the Columbia River is maintained at a depth of 43ft, which is not deep enough to accommodate the latest generation of fully loaded cargo vessels. Also, reaching the port requires a 100 mile piloted journey upriver. As a result of these and other challenges, the port’s container terminal, Terminal 6, lost its last remaining regularly scheduled container service in 2016.

But then everything changed. Following concerted efforts behind the scenes by the Port of Portland’s marine department, and helped along by the container shipping bottlenecks that continue to afflict the US West Coast, Terminal 6 has made a triumphant comeback.

The first milestone in its recovery was the return of South Korean national carrier SM Line which relaunched a weekly service to Portland in January 2020. Then in September 2021, SM Line added two more vessels per month to its rotation. Simultaneously, the port announced that shipping conglomerate MSC would bring a weekly service to the Port of Portland as well.

MSC’s first vessel to arrive was the Panamax class MSC Ela, with a capacity of 4,900 TEU. Weeks later, the much larger MSC Navios Unite, with a capacity of 8,200 TEU, sailed its way up the river and arrived at the port to great fanfare.

“This was the largest vessel to ever come up the river,” Mr Richards said proudly. “It’s the biggest container vessel that can sail up the river based on the 43ft draught limitation. That was big news for us.”

MSC and SM Line are not the only ships choosing the Port of Portland, however. In addition to the liner services, the port is also experiencing an increase in ad-hoc liners, Mr Richards revealed.

PORT OF PORTLAND I PROFILE

“We now have a weekly liner service that is exclusively importing 53ft containers as well as the 53ft containers we’re seeing on the ad-hoc liners. That’s an opportunity that simply didn’t exist prior. Having a weekly liner service of 53ft containers and sending them out by rail and truck, has been a big and very exciting surprise for us.”

Mr Richards was proud of the Port of Portland’s strong position in the US West Coast logistics chain.

“Our success is due to a lack of congestion at our facility, and our ability to get ships in and out,” he said. “There are no ships waiting around to be unloaded. That lack of congestion is a big benefit that we can offer customers and it’s made us something of the darling of the West Coast in the container business.”

Breaking into breakbulk

With a number of renewable energy projects in various stages of approval and construction around the United States, the Port of Portland is handling large amounts of breakbulk cargo in support of a number of these projects.

“We’ve recently started moving large lithium-ion batteries for wind, solar and battery farms,” confirmed Mr Richards. “We recently brought in our first shipment of batteries that are roughly the size of a 20-foot container each. We expect multiple more shiploads of those batteries. They’re handled very much like containers but with some additional precautions since they’re so heavy. They’re definitely handled a little more gingerly!”

These battery units arrive at the Port of Portland as breakbulk cargo, a category in which the port is enjoying surging interest from customers.

“We’ve seen MSC bringing in breakbulk on their container vessels. It’s cargo like gearboxes and components for wind energy, as well as heavy machinery and heavy vehicles,” Mr Richards detailed. “We’ve also seen the transformers for those projects coming in for the first time in over five years. Some transformers are 100 tonnes, some 250 tonnes. They’re all coming and going on these ships. Altogether, we’ve experienced a big uptick in our breakbulk business.”

Cars, containers, and the art of juggling

With the surging container activity at Terminal 6 requiring everincreasing storage space, space management has become one of the port’s biggest challenges.

“With the introduction of MSC and SM Line and all of the ad-hoc ships, and the space required for our auto business – bringing in Toyota and Hyundai – the biggest challenge is trying to juggle all of these things,” Mr Richards conceded.

Undeterred, the Port of Portland’s maritime department is laser-focused on further developing its container and breakbulk cargo services, both of which are its biggest growth areas.

“It requires constant work,” said Mr Richards. “For example, the 53ft containers require a special spreader beam for the cranes. Those beams are becoming harder to procure. We just purchased

two new spreader beams in addition to the ones we already had, so we’re investing in the infrastructure needed for this side of the business. All of that while juggling the space and maintaining and acquiring new equipment.”

To help ensure the continued smooth operation of its fastgrowing container operations, the port plans to repave some of its space to handle additional containers whilst also reviewing the use of some neighbouring industrial property that it owns. The port’s research indicates that the availability of sufficient space will lead to it receiving a greater share of breakbulk cargo for offshore wind farm projects.

“We’ve brought in smaller items like gearboxes but the big components haven’t come our way yet,” Mr Richards remarked. “A lot of it is owing to the lack of space due to the significant growth of our container operation.”

Accommodating surging growth

Wrapping up our conversation, and in the context of the port’s redevelopment efforts to accommodate its surging growth, Mr Richards highlighted a project that is particularly close to his own heart: the redevelopment of a space that previously housed an old grain elevator.

“We have three conceptual project options for the redevelopment of the space,” he announced. “We’re currently subject to NDAs, but I can reveal that the plans are at an advanced stage and we expect to make an announcement on it in 2023. This project is the dearest to my heart as I’ve been working on it for the past six years so it’s something I’ve put a lot of time into.

“All I can reveal for now is that it will be a new commodity that hasn’t been handled by the Port of Portland in the past. Watch this space!” n