Suez Canal Expansion, US West Coast Volume Dips – TWIGL

Suez Canal Expansion Opens – An expansion to the Suze Canal opened this week.  The project reportedly cost $8.2 billion to complete.  Officials estimate that the expansion will cut average vessel waiting time of 8-11 hours down to 3 as well as allow larger vessels to traverse the canal.

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US West Coast Volume Down – Container traffic through the U.S. West Coast remains down as cargo diversions continue.  The ILWU-PMA contract dispute led many importers to seek alternatives to the popular West Coast gateways.  For the first half of 2015, East Coast ports increased their share of U.S. imports from 40% to 43%.  In the same time period Gulf Coast ports moved from 1% to a 6% share.

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