Port Of Baltimore adds Israel-based container shipping line service

The Maryland Department of Transportation Maryland Port Administration, working with public-private partner Ports America Chesapeake (PAC), has attracted one of the top ocean carrier container companies in the world, Israel-based ZIM Shipping Line, to begin calls at the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore.

The name of the new service is the Zim e-Commerce Baltimore express (ZXB), a service from China and southeast Asia to the U.S. East Coast.  ZIM operates a fleet of close to 100 vessels, and is a significant participant in international container shipping with a sizeable market share. ZIM’s global footprint includes trade lanes in the Transpacific, Cross Atlantic, Cross Suez, Intra-Asia and Latin America.

The new service will begin with bi-weekly frequency and build up to weekly within a few months.  ZXB is operated exclusively by ZIM and offers its customers the fastest transit time from Asia to Baltimore, guaranteed space, and equipment without rolling, late cutoff from Asia ports, a dedicated out-of-gate lane, and expedited rail/air/road connections to inland destinations.

There is a need for utilization of more gateways such as Baltimore to land cargo in the United States.  Import/export demand for containerized cargo has substantially increased over the past year. With that demand, port congestion is an all-time high. Baltimore is a prime gateway for goods heading to the ecommerce market and for cargo sent to the Midwest via rail. Maryland’s Port has handled more than 40 calls since July 2020 from “ad hoc” ships, which includes extra loaders from ZIM, – vessels diverted to Baltimore that were not on a regularly scheduled service call.

The addition of ZIM follows two recent container services that recently began at the Port of Baltimore: a new Southeast Asia, Vietnam and China service on Maersk and a new Indian Subcontinent and Mediterranean service through Mediterranean Shipping Co.

In September, Maryland’s Port of Baltimore welcomed four additional supersized, Neo-Panamax container cranes as part of a $166 million investment made by Ports America Chesapeake at the Seagirt Marine Terminal. The cranes are undergoing thorough testing and are expected to be operational next month.  The new cranes will serve the Port’s second 50-foot-deep berth, which was completed last year. Having two deep berths will allow the Port to serve two supersized cargo ships simultaneously.

The new Seagirt berth and cranes will complement the CSX-owned Howard Street Tunnel expansion project which will allow for double-stacked container rail cars, clearing a longtime hurdle for the Port and giving the East Coast seamless double-stack capacity from Maine to Florida. The project involves clearance improvements in the 126-year-old tunnel and at 21 other locations between Baltimore and Philadelphia. With the tunnel expansion project, Baltimore will be able to send double stacked containers by rail into the Ohio Valley and onto Chicago. Groundbreaking on the project occurred in November 2021 and the project is scheduled to be completed in 2025.

The Howard Street Tunnel project benefits from public-private investment from the federal government, Maryland, CSX, and others, and is expected to increase the Port’s business by about 160,000 containers annually. It will also generate about 6,550 construction jobs and an additional 7,300 jobs from the increased business.

Maryland’s Port of Baltimore generates about 15,300 direct jobs, with nearly 140,000 jobs overall linked to Port activities. The Port ranks first among the nation’s ports for volume of autos and light trucks, roll on/roll off heavy farm and construction machinery, and imported gypsum. It ranks 11th among major U.S. ports for foreign cargo handled and ninth for total foreign cargo value.