The United States is facing growing challenges exporting agricultural products abroad at a time when it lacks the U.S. flagged vessels to support international trade, according to panelists addressing a Maritime Day symposium entitled “Do U.S. Exporters Need U.S. Ships?”

The presentations were made before the Propeller Club of Northern California on May 16th via Zoom.

In his welcoming remarks, Jim Patti, president, International Propeller Club of the United States argued that the United States needs to build more commercial vessels as it faces shortfalls in vessel carrying capabilities for exports of agricultural goods and for energy products such as LNG.

U.S. Exporters Will Suffer Again In 2022

Paul Snell, chief executive officer, British American Shipping, Long Beach, California discussed “Challenges for U.S. Exporters in 2022.” He said that ocean carriers will likely not resume their traditional number of sailings at ports such as the Port of Oakland. This will adversely impact U.S. exporters selling to Asian and European markets in 2022.

Snell said there is a serious problem with the lack of infrastructure at ports and he particularly referenced the lack of on-dock rail which has slowed the velocity of imported containers coming into the United States as well as slowing the flow of exported containers. Snell cited the on-dock rail problem at the Ports of Oakland and Houston.

In 2021, California agricultural exporters lost $2.1 billion partly due to deficient port operations, according to a University of California, Davis and University of Connecticut report.

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New infrastructure investments will be needed to support U.S. Great Lakes ports and their expansion, says Steve Fisher, executive director, American Great Lakes Ports Association (AGLPA).

The ports are seeing an increase in shipments of wind turbine components, some expansion of container cargoes and continued shipments of steel products and exports of agricultural products.

At the same time, a May report in Maritime Exchange has noted new containership services at the Great Lakes ports of Duluth, Minnesota, and Cleveland, Ohio:

“The rise in fuel prices has prompted renewed interest in expanding container shipping at America’s Great Lakes ports, like Duluth and Cleveland. There is potential for Port of Duluth to develop containerized dry bulk agricultural exports to Europe, where growing numbers of customers are willing to take delivery of containers of agricultural produce.”

The report went on to explain: “The Port of Cleveland played an instrumental role in developing viable container shipping between Europe and the Great Lakes when it introduced a direct service to Antwerp. A comparatively small container ship of under 1,000 TEU has feasibly carried containers between Antwerp and Cleveland, with rates that compete with the alternative option – a mega-size container ship sailing to Port of Newark followed by high-cost railway connection to Cleveland. The Port of Duluth involves an even greater railway distance (1,250 miles), making direct Duluth – Europe container shipping potentially more attractive.”

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Smaller U.S. West Coast ports, including the Ports of Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma are experiencing ocean carrier service cutbacks that are adversely impacting U.S. agricultural exporters, according to Paul Snell, president of Huntington Beach, CA-based British-American Shipping.

The export situation is likely to remain challenging for the remainder of 2022, Snell said.

California Exporters Lost $2.1 billion in 2021

Snell was speaking to the Propeller Club of Northern California on April 19th.

In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that final 2021 trade data showed that exports of U.S. farm and food products totaled $177 billion, topping the 2020 total by 18 percent.

However, in 2021, California agricultural exporters lost $2.1 billion partly due to California port operations and high import freight rates, according to a University of California at Davis and University of Connecticut report.

The report explained: “We found that containerized agricultural exports from California ports were $2.1 billion (or 17%) below their counterfactual level due to port congestion between May and September 2021. California farmers bore the brunt of these losses, with tree nuts, wine, rice, and dairy products suffering significant economic damages. The annualized economic impact is by far larger than that of the 2018 U.S.-China trade war, which caused economic losses of about $500 million to California agriculture.”

The report said that 97,000 fewer export containers shipped in 2021 contributing to the $2.1 billion loss: “California ports handled about 97,000 fewer container exports (measured in TEUs) loaded with agricultural products compared to the counterfactual scenario. This amounts to $2.1 billion in lost foreign sales.”

The report entitled “Containergeddon” and California Agriculture partly blames inefficiencies at California ports for the losses: “The lost farm exports mirror the fact that California ports are among the least efficient in the world. As a result, some importers now view California as an unreliable supplier of agricultural products due to inferior port infrastructure.”

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Dave Arsenault, president of Oakland, Ca based GSC Logistics and a former president of Hyundai Merchant Marine America, warned that container space has become a more important factor than cost for booking imports and exports on ocean carriers.

“Cargo owners are a bit gun shy right now. For the last few years, they have so much disruption and distress in their supply chains that the cost of service is … secondary to space.”

Arsenault went on to predict that freight rates would stay high: “The demand exceeds the supply. This means that rates are not going to be coming down, if anything will maintain or even increase, in some markets.”

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Container shipping analyst Lars Jensen, the principal at Copenhagen-based Vespucci Maritime Consulting, warned that tensions between Russia and the Ukraine could spill out into cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, including ports.

Jensen warned the element of risk has risen drastically in the last weeks. “I cannot stress enough how seriously this should be taken.”

Jensen was addressing the Propeller Club of Northern California (PCNC) on February 8th.

Recalling the 2017 cyberattack that shut down the ocean carrier Maersk, Jensen said:

“Remember that in 2017 Maersk was brought down by a cyberattack. They were completely down for a week, and it took several weeks to get back up and running. Maersk was purely collateral damage of a Russian-backed cyberattack on the Ukraine. Several thousand companies got hit on that attack.”

Today the risk of damage could be far worse: “Fast forward to the situation right now with Russia on one side and NATO and the Ukraine on the other… In the last few weeks, authorities in Britain, Canada and the United States have warned that this is a significant risk against critical infrastructure. So, this threat has to be taken very seriously. U.K. authorities are reporting cyber activities that are very similar to those that preceded the cyberattacks of 2017.”

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