FIRST MSC CALL AT LONG BEACH’S PIER A

FIRST MSC CALL AT LONG BEACH’S PIER A    The port of Long Beach’s seventh container terminal has started operations with its first ship call, which occurred Christmas Eve when Mediterranean Shipping Co.’s “MSC Sarah” arrived at the Pier A facility of Stevedoring Services of America Terminals-Long Beach.
   MSC’s ships had been calling at the neighboring port of Los Angeles. “With this first vessel call, we welcome SSAT-Long Beach and Mediterranean Shipping to the port of Long Beach,” said Richard D. Steinke, the port’s executive director.
   The 4,400-TEU “MSC Sarah,” which arrived from Manzanillo, Mexico, is deployed by MSC in a pendulum service that calls in the U.S. East Coast and the Caribbean, steams through the Panama Canal, with further calls in Mexico, Long Beach and the Far East, before swinging back to Long Beach.
   The port of Long Beach is leasing the 170-acre Pier A terminal to SSAT-Long Beach under a 25-year agreement that calls for SSAT to pay the port a minimum of $19 million a year.
   Pier A, located north of Terminal Island, was formerly used by Hanjin Shipping, which moved last September to a 375-acre terminal at Long Beach’s Pier T.
   Pier A features a 3,600-foot-long berth with a water depth of 50 feet, six post-Panamax gantry cranes, a 20-lane truck gate, and an on-dock intermodal rail yard capable of working two 8,000-foot-long double-stack trains.