Ports Planned Well for Panama Canal Changes

Strasmann: “Long term, we anticipate approximately a 3% to 5% decrease in volume, mainly of lower-end goods that will be diverted through the Panama Canal to Gulf and East Coast ports.”

NEWPORT BEACH, CA—Bottom line is that the Long Beach/L.A. ports have done a great job at continuously reinvesting to provide operational efficiencies for the transportation of goods, CBRE’s senior managing director of Orange County operations Kurt Strasmann tells GlobeSt.com. A recent report from the firm showed that increased capacity of the Panama Canal will, in the long-term, result in more mega ships carrying Asian export cargo directly to the East Coast and that it will shift cargo delivery from slightly favoring the West Coast to a more even split between the two coasts. We spoke exclusively with Strasmann about how the West Coast ports might react to this shift in activity and how they could make up the potential shortfall.

GlobeSt.com: How might the West Coast ports react to activity being more evenly split among the two coasts as a result of the expanded Panama Canal?