The PortMiami authority is pushing on all doors to find ones that will open new container markets and attract more shippers.
Besides new cargo from Asia, fruit producers in South America and domestic grain exporters, PortMiami officials also say they want to increase the volume of transshipment cargo in Miami and South Florida.
Transshipment from large trans-oceanic vessels to smaller feeder vessels serving Latin America and the Caribbean was once a vibrant business at PortMiami, accounting for 25 percent to 27 percent of its container volume. But the practice became a victim of tighter post-Sept. 11, 2001 security measures. Even though U.S. Customs and Border Protection has redesigned its systems and processes to clear international cargo more efficiently, the perception remains among shippers that transshipment in Miami is subject to costly delays.
Today, about 2 percent of Miami’s business is transshipment cargo.
“I’d love to say that five years from now that 15 percent of our business is transshipment,” Port Director Juan Kuryla said during an interview in his office last year.
The reality is that U.S. Customs is facilitating transshipment trade and that Miami is better suited than offshore locations, such as Freeport, Bahamas; Kingston, Jamaica; Caucedo; Dominican Republic; and Panama, to meet the needs of shippers and carriers, port officials argue.
Miami has 40 services a week to Latin America and the Caribbean.
After the deadliest attack on U.S. soil in 2001, national security officials realized that airline passengers and containers making thru-transits to other countries without any scrutiny represented a weak link in the transportation system. Soon, 200 to 300 containers a day were being staged on terminals for inspection by U.S. Customs. The resulting delays were a turn-off for shippers who gravitated to the offshore logistics hubs, where checks were few and far between.
Global ports tend to struggle making decent money on transshipment cargo that is merely flipped from one ship to another, but Kuryla insisted transshipment makes sense in Miami because the bulk of its revenue comes from offloading and processing cargo for the large domestic market in South Florida and beyond. Ship-to-ship transfers provide marginal revenue for a port that has already sunk money into infrastructure for its primary mission.
“It’s a win-win,” the port director said. “If I have nothing now, I’d rather get 50 cents on the dollar than get zero on the dollar.”
Eric Olafson, the port’s trade development manager, said, “We’re different than an island because that island is not going to consume” what’s in the containers.
Ocean carriers would prefer to transship in the United States, because the customs rules are standardized and not carried out arbitrarily, and there is little pilferage, he added. Plus, they can unload in one place for the U.S. and regional markets.
And, the indiscriminate inspections that created so much hassle are apparently in the past. For one thing, Customs officers now have at their disposal a large database and targeting system based on advanced analysis of the manifest and import documents filed by traders that allows for much more selective inspections of suspicious boxes. Routine shipments quickly get cleared by the system.
CBP has guaranteed PortMiami and its customers that it will make transshipment cargo a priority over regular shipments. A vessel with containers of melons from Honduras bound for Rotterdam, for example, will get released before the containerized melons headed to Walmart distribution centers in Florida, Olafson said.
In addition to CBP’s increased efficiency, PortMiami terminals offer a special transshipment rate that is 30 percent to 40 percent less than the normal one for wharf use and crane lifts, officials said.
This article was published in the November 2015 issue of American Shipper.
Transshipment business remains elusive
