Orient Overseas Container Line Ltd., one of the world’s largest container shippers, has signed a lease agreement with the Port of Long Beach worth $4.6 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Orient will triple its terminal size over the next eight years.
The Port of Long Beach is trying to get ahead of an expansion to the Panama Canal that will permit larger vessels to use the canal beginning in 2014. West Coast ports do not want to lose business to East Coast ports, which are already looking at expansion plans to accommodate what they see as a significant traffic increase.
The expansion at Long Beach should also help rail carriers, which have been moving more freight and posting bigger profits as goods from Asia reach the West Coast and then need to be moved east. Long Beach is the second-busiest port in the US, after Los Angeles.
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