Sizing Up the Economic Impact of the Baltimore Bridge Collapse
The containership crash that downed a Baltimore bridge Tuesday stands to snarl shipping along the East Coast for months. Officials say the bridge collapse could affect port operations for a long time, forcing other ports in the region to take on extra shipments. Companies that transport cars and coal, two of the important categories of cargo that run through Baltimore, already are looking for alternative destinations.
Those pressures are likely to intensify the longer port traffic is slowed, but for how long wasn’t clear. “We don’t have an estimate on timeline as of yet," Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Tuesday.
“Our focus really is right now making sure we’re saving lives." Here are the areas most likely to be affected. Shipping The Francis Scott Key Bridge crossed the Patapsco River that leads into the Port of Baltimore. Officials have suspended all vessel traffic until further notice.
The Baltimore port is a key entry point to the U.S. market for imported cars and farm equipment, as well as America’s second-largest hub for exporting coal to be sold abroad. Though it is a top-10 U.S.
port by container volumes, it processes far fewer containers than other East Coast ports including the Port of New York and New Jersey. Much of the boxship traffic that was headed to Baltimore is likely to go there. Coal Any disruptions could hit global coal markets especially hard.
Traders exported about 22.9 million metric tons of the commodity from Baltimore last year, according to ship-tracking firm Kpler, sending much of the heat- and power-generation fuel to buyers in India, China and Europe. The total represented more than 27% of all U.S. seaborne coal exports.
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