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Stena Bulk USA recently
hosted the Christening of its newest tanker, the New
Concordia Maritime Vessel, “Stena Performance” at the
Port of Charleston, South Carolina.
This ship is an example of
the new Post-PanaMax product tanker now being built.
These ships are too large to transit the Panama Canal,
but can hold more cargo, and so operate more
efficiently. More importantly, the
Stena Performance was built with proactive safety as a
central design criterion.
Double hull, optimal
corrosion control, two engine rooms with full fire and
water integrity, and redundant and separate systems for
propulsion are some of the vital safeguards built into
this ship. Add maneuverability and an integrated bridge
layout to facilitate safe navigation in narrow waters.
Sum up with a dedicated and well-trained crew and you
have the Stena P-MAX – the safest product tanker ever.
Asia trade strains port
New U.S. maritime chief pays a visit to Oakland, where
bustling traffic points to need for expansion
Reposted from
sfgate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle
David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer
Driven by
surging trade with Asia that is
approaching double-digit growth
this year, the Port of Oakland
-- one of the country's prime
gateways for ocean shipping to
and from Asia -- is feeling a
new sense of urgency about
development projects that it
hopes will expand its capacity
to handle all that new business.
On
Tuesday, port officials got the
ear of someone who might be able
to help them realize their
growth plans: Sean Connaughton,
the newly appointed
administrator of the U.S.
Department of Transportation's
Maritime
Administration.
Connaughton, a Coast Guard
veteran and lawyer who has been
in his post six weeks, stopped
by Oakland on a get-acquainted
tour of the nation's 10 busiest
ports, a day after visiting Los
Angeles/Long Beach and a day
before jetting off to
Seattle/Tacoma.
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Oakland,
easily Northern California's
largest seaport, is the
fourth-largest cargo container
port in the United States -- and
the port has big plans for
streamlining intermodal links
between cargo ships, railroads
and trucks, cutting the
pollution that accompanies
growth, and dredging the harbor
to a depth of 50 feet from the
present 47 feet to be able to
handle the next generation of
supersize, ocean-going cargo
container ships.
Connaughton, who received a
quick-step tour of the roughly
800-acre seaport from director
of engineering Jerry Serventi,
didn't tip his hand regarding
what projects he might decide to
back but said the needs of the
nation's ports posed by their
growth spurt are very real.
"The
challenge we face is the
enormous growth in trade, and
that is being driven by
U.S.-Asia trade," Connaughton
said. "We have to be able to
handle that trade. The West
Coast ports handle more than 50
percent of all imports. They are
really gateways for the rest of
the country.
"Ports
like this one are important to
the economies of their
localities, but they are really
more than that -- they are
national assets," he said.
The Port
of Oakland, which operates both
the seaport and Oakland
International Airport, functions
as an independent department of
the city of Oakland. It receives
99 percent of cargo containers
that arrive in the Bay Area by
sea, filled with footwear,
apparel and toys from China,
Japan and other Asian trading
nations. California farm
produce, machinery and computers
go the other way, toward Asia,
also from Oakland.
Although
the Port of Oakland is hemmed in
physically by a spaghetti-tangle
of freeways, the Bay Bridge and
of course the shoreline, it has
grown in recent years by taking
over former military land
adjacent to the historic port.
To read
the rest of the article
click here.
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