Kimberlee Baxter and Markus McMillin from Thomas Miller's San Francisco office and Andrew Morgan from Chelsea Risk Management in San Francisco along with Robert Kempkens from Thomas Miller's London office went down to Panama 3 - 6 May 2016 for a Claims Review with long-time TT Club Member SSA.
SSA and its partners have invested over $800 million in their Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT) near Colon (on the Caribbean Sea side of the Panama Canal). MIT has a handling capacity of 2.4 million TEUs and transhipment operations represent 85% of its containerized activity.
After their morning tour of MIT, which employs cutting-edge crane technology, the group visited the new Gatun Locks on the Panama Canal which are scheduled to open in June. They also watched a container ship transit the old Gatun Locks and learned a load of history, facts and figures about the Panama Canal.
The global freight transport insurer is encouraging supply chain stakeholders to understand better the interrelationship of the various functions in the intermodal network, particularly in the United States where one effect of the enlarged Panama Canal will be to increase importers' routing options in order to supply internal markets
Apart from the recent devastating explosion in Beirut, there has been a spate of ro-ro/car carrier fires in recent months, leading to fresh calls for improvements, scrutiny and control in relation to dangerous goods (DG). Container ship fires are always in mind.
The recent reports of container ship fires has once more focussed those in the container supply chain on safety issues related to the incorrect processing of dangerous goods. The nascent Cargo Integrity campaign initiated by the international transport and logistics insurer, TT Club has as a consequence gained renewed impetus.
A number of container lines have recently announced measures to discourage shippers from mis-declaring hazardous cargoes, which is a practice strongly suspected as being either the cause of, or at least contributory to, the spate of container ship fires in recent months.
