The Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), general manager, who runs the Port of Oakland’s largest container terminal, Oakland International Container Terminal (OICT) says that the Port must quickly embark on an expansion of the Turning Basin located in the Oakland Estuary or face the loss of next generation container ship business.
In an interview with AJOT, Jim Rice, general manager SSA Marine Inc said that it became clear when CMA’s 18,000 teu (twenty-foot unit) container ship, Benjamin Franklin, docked at OICT three years ago that maneuvering the ship through the Turning Basin “was not going to work on a regular basis because the Basin was too narrow.”