2 American Journal of Transportation aj ot.com As US dollar gains, so do RO-RO TRANSPORTATION 2016 JAXPORT’s ro-ro imports Florida port is increasingly attracting autos and other wheeled cargo from overseas By Peter Buxbaum, AJOT The Port of Jacksonville pany, AMPORTS, offered is something of a bellwether the optimum combination for North America’s of efficiency, quality, and ro-ro business. Not too service,” said Howard long ago, the Port of Chang, vehicle logistics Jacksonville held brag- manager for PCNA. ging rights as the larg- This development est vehicle export port followed on the heels of in the nation. But the announcement in as changes come February 2015 that about in the con- Volkswagen Group ditions of interna- of America would tional trade, so does the mix move its import facility for cars of roll on-roll off (ro-ro) car- and SUVs, and its Southeast goes at JAXPORT. U.S. distribution operations, to As the United States dollar Jacksonville. The Volkswagen has gained strength in recent business created 100 jobs at years, U.S. exporters find it (GAINS – continued on more difficult to sell overseas page 4) while imports become more attractive. That, combined with historically low oil prices, is reflected in the kinds of ro-ro cargoes being handled at the Port of Jacksonville. “The cargo mix has changed a little in the last year,” said Frank Camp, sales and marketing director at the Port of Jacksonville. “As new customers have come and other economic factors weigh in, we have seen the volume of exports being balanced out by an increase in imports.” Besides the effect of the value of the dollar at the macro level, low oil prices have meant that lucrative overseas markets, such as those in the Middle East and West Africa, which are depen- dent upon the sale of petro- leum, have less buying power. Low oil prices also translate into relatively lower gasoline prices and that, in combina- tion with the strong dollar, has been reflected in an increase in imports of larger and more expensive passenger vehicles such as SUVs. “Exports have fallen off somewhat,” added Camp. “Some traditional export mar- kets have cooled off but exports are not down dramatically.” Most of the growing import business involves pas- senger vehicles, many from Europe and Asia, but a growing number from Mexico, which has attracted investments from just about every automaker internationally. Camp expects imports from Mexico to be a growing segment of JAX- PORT’s ro-ro business. US SOUTHEAST MARKET In recent months, Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (PCNA) announced its selec- tion of JAXPORT as its port of entry for new Porsche vehicles bound for dealers in the Southeastern United States. “Porsche conducted an extensive bid process and found JAXPORT and the selected processing com- 4 American Journal of Transportation aj ot.com (GAINS – continued from page 2) April 2016, the first cargo move at the Ro-ro carriers looking for non-traditional the vehicle processor AMPORTS and Intermodal Container Transfer Facil- cargo at Jacksonville and elsewhere generated a capital investment of $3 ity (ICTF) involved a high-level mili- million. tary training exercise, and included By Peter Buxbaum, AJOT A renovated plant is being used to both containers and ro-ro equipment. receive and process new Volkswagen, “The ICTF is probably not going The notion that container carriers to move non-wheeled cargo onto Audi, and Bentley vehicles. Volkswa- to see a tremendous amount of ro-ro, are trying to poach project and heavy- ro-ro vessels,” noted Camp. Compo- gen, Audi, and Bentley are transport- although the first movement of cargo lift cargo is nothing new. Drewry, nents and parts for power generation ing around 100,000 cars per year to included ro-ro,” said Camp. “The the London-based maritime shipping projects are the primary cargoes JAX- Jacksonville. interesting thing about the facility is consultancy, identified that trend at PORT has seen switch from lift on-lift Jacksonville’s attraction of the that the rail line runs along some land least three years ago. off (li-lo) vessels to ro-ro. Porsche business soon after Volk- that the port has available for expan- But now, it looks like ro-ro carriers In some cases, traditional li-lo swagen was no coincidence. Porsche sion and which is looking now to be are also coming after cargo traditionally cargoes make the transition to ro-ro by vehicles travel on the same vessels as an auto terminal,” said Camp. “As a carried by a heavy-lift fleet that contin- giving them a set of wheels. Such was Audi, Bentley, and Volkswagen vehi- benefit of constructing the container ues to suffer from simultaneous capacity the case in the Port of Jacksonville cles bound for the region. transfer facility will have active rail increases and rate decreases. when four helicopters came through On the export side, other than near the new auto terminal.” “We are seeing increased interest JAXPORT’s heavy lift and specialty autos, Jacksonville still sees a good EXPANDED PANAMA CANAL IMPACT by ro-ro carriers going after non-tra- cargo berth at Blount Island Marine deal of heavy equipment, much of it ditional ro-ro cargo, such as break- Terminal. The helicopters are 50 feet manufactured in the Southeast, on their Camp expects that the expanded bulk and smaller projects,” said Frank in length, weigh 10,000 pounds each, way to export markets. These include Panama Canal, scheduled to be inau- Camp, sales and marketing director at and are worth $15 million apiece. excavators, bulldozers, forklifts, and gurated on June 26, will have an the Port of Jacksonville. “A few years Workers used specialty equipment cranes, both rubber-tired and steel- impact on the size of vessels that ro-ro ago it was rare to see ro-ro carriers to roll the helicopters off the U.S.- tracked. Camp has also noticed that carriers will be ordering. “I think the at breakbulk conferences. Now there flagged Liberty Global Logistics ro-ro ro-ro carriers are increasingly carrying ro-ro carriers are looking at vessel size is a more substantial presence. They vessel Liberty Pride. non-ro-ro types of cargoes out of the almost in the same way the container are going after breakbulk and project The helicopters, which arrived at port of Jacksonville. guys do,” he said, “to take advantage cargo to diversify their cargo mix.” JAXPORT from the Middle East, are JAXPORT boasts three differ- of economies of scale and lower the Ro-ro carriers are building ships owned by a foreign military and were ent terminals—Blount Island, Dames cost per unit of cargo they carry. Some designed to carry high and heavy and trucked from Jacksonville to a manu- Point, and Talleyrand—all of which carriers are already building larger breakbulk cargoes. For example, Wal- facturing facility in the U.S. Southeast receive ro-ro cargo and all of which ro-ro ships. They are not necessarily lenius Wilhelmsen Logistics intro- for refurbishing. have active rail service to the dock. longer or deeper, because they still duced the Mark V vessel a few years The multipurpose carriers aren’t Blount Island is the largest of the have to go to draft-constrained ports, ago, a ship that the carrier describes necessarily taking these develop- terminals and receives the largest but they are certainly wider.” as a ro-ro “super vessel.” A Panamax ments lying down. Last year, AAL, number of ro-ro vessels. As far as Latin America is con- vessel that serves in round-the-world a multipurpose shipping opera- A newly-completed rail termi- cerned, Camp sees “Mexico and trades, the Mark V has over half a mil- tor, transported a fleet of eight air- nal, which as its name suggests, will everyone else.” The economies of lion square feet in deck area, of which port shuttle buses, which might be be involved primarily in transferring most of Latin America outside of over 330,000 square feet is reserved expected to be carried aboard a ro-ro containers to and from JAXPORT’s Mexico are challenged at the moment for high and heavy cargo. vessel, from Xingang, China, to Mel- Dames Point terminal, may, in the and aren’t playing a big roll in JAX- “The ro-ro carriers have also made bourne, Australia. AAL was chosen future, also enhance the port’s ro-ro PORT’s ro-ro business. significant investments in equipment (CARGO – continued on page 16) services at that location. 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