LONDON (Reuters) – A significant bridge collapsed within the U.S. port of Baltimore within the early hours of Tuesday after being struck by a container ship, plunging vehicles into the river under.
Site visitors was suspended on the port till additional discover, Maryland transportation authorities stated.
It’s the deepest harbor in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, nearer to the Midwest than different East Coast ports, with 5 public and 12 non-public terminals, based on Maryland authorities web site.
It is likely one of the smallest container ports on the Northeastern seaboard, dealing with 265,000 containers within the fourth quarter of final yr, based on container delivery professional Lars Jensen.
The Port of New York and New Jersey dealt with round 2 million containers in that very same interval, and Norfolk Port in Virginia dealt with 850,000, so the movement of containers to Baltimore can seemingly be redistributed to larger ports, Jensen stated.
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CURRENT STATUS OF CARGO SHIPS INSIDE PORT
Greater than 40 ships remained inside Baltimore port, together with small cargo ships, tug boats and pleasure craft, information from ship monitoring and maritime analytics supplier MarineTraffic reveals.
A minimum of 30 different ships had signalled their vacation spot was Baltimore, the info confirmed.
It’s the busiest U.S. port for automobile shipments, dealing with greater than 750,000 autos in 2023, based on information from the Maryland Port Administration.
The port handles imports and exports for main automakers together with Nissan, Toyota, Common Motors, Volvo Automobile, Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen, together with luxurious fashions for Audi, Lamborghini and Bentley.
It’s also the biggest U.S. port by quantity for dealing with farm and building equipment, in addition to agricultural merchandise.
Imports of agricultural merchandise totalled 3 million tonnes final yr, together with 1.2 million of sugar and salt, in addition to gypsum, fertilisers and forest merchandise, based on Ishan Bhanu, lead agricultural commodities analyst at Kpler.
Different high imports have been paper/paperboard and plywood/veneer/particle board, the Maryland authority web site reveals.
In 2023, the port was the second busiest for coal exports. Its eight dry bulk terminals exported 22 million tonnes of coal final yr and small quantities of different metals and minerals, based on Kpler’s Bhanu.
Different high export commodities by weight in 2022 have been liquefied pure gasoline (LNG), wastepaper, ferrous scrap, and cars/gentle vans, based on Maryland authorities information.
Cove Level, which is upstream from the bridge, is the closest LNG terminal. ICIS ship monitoring information present Cove Level sometimes exports about 500,000 tonnes monthly.
It’s also a cruise terminal, with operators Norwegian, Carnival and Royal Caribbean, all utilizing the port for Caribbean, Canadian, and different Atlantic locations.
In 2023, cruises carrying greater than 444,000 passengers departed from the port, the Maryland authorities web site says.
LONDON METAL EXCHANGE WAREHOUSES
In Baltimore warehouses registered with the London Steel Alternate, there are 756 metric tons of nickel, 150 tons of tin and 50 tons of copper, LME information reveals.
(Reporting by Josephine Mason, Nick Carey, Helen Reid, Jonathan Saul, Nigel Hunt, Marwa Rashad and Eric Onstad; Compiled by Josephine Mason; Modifying by Nick Macfie)
Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters.
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