Looking into the future: big full containerships and their arrival to South American ports

Abstract

The global and regional economic growth seen in the past decades has triggered a major transformation of the maritime transport sector, the ports, and the logistics. Regarding shipping in particular, ships of a growing size are being allocated to container transport with increasing frequency. This size enlargement has a strategic implication in the planning of ports and its services and related activities. Considering historical data, it can be observed that the large vessels which travel the main maritime routes of worldwide trade need progressively fewer years to reach the coasts of South America. This paper seeks to determine the time span before the largest vessels of the present time (with an average 13 000 TEUS) will reach the South American coasts. Different models were estimated, considering the following factors as explanatory variables for the international maximum vessel size: maritime trade, global economic activity, time span between the appearance of vessels navigating the maritime routes of international trade and their arrival to the coasts of the mentioned region, and the characteristics of the eastern and western South American coasts. As a major finding, it was determined that the vessels of an average 13 000 TEUS would reach South America regularly between 2016 and 2020. These results are interesting in order to warn about the need for an efficient medium-term planning of the port industry and the logistics that could maximize the benefits of its impact on the regional economy.