Mobile Container Terminal waits for market to catch up

On a recent Monday afternoon, operators of twin cranes moved boxes weighing 4 to 30 tons from the ZIM Jamaica to the holding yard at Mobile Container Terminal, a staging area for further travel to points all over the nation.

With the precision of video gamers, they hoisted and moved containers, with terminal Director Brian Clark saying the operation is almost twice as fast as a year ago, when boxes were moved at the gingerly rate of 40 per hour.

Such speed now "puts us at a very competitive level among ports in the U.S.," he said. "It's definitely a good selling point for us."

The problem, however, is that few are buying.

The global economic downturn has shipping volumes in free fall. Companies have slashed rates and cut routes. It is bad enough that CMA CGM, a partner in the Mobile terminal, in October cut its regular service to and from Mobile.

"Volume-wise, it's not much of an impact — it's more of the fact that we lost a customer," Clark said. "We have one less service to sell."

Clark referred questions to the French shipping company, which said via e-mail that the suspension is "just temporary."

Malcom McLean, who once owned Mobile's Waterman Steamship Co., revolutionized trade in the mid-1950s with the introduction of container-

ized shipping. Companies now have established routes, or lines, to transport products, moving most of the world's cargo in metal boxes stacked on ships.

Container shipping volume had grown at more than

CONTINUED 1 | 2 Next