Containerization may revolutionize shipping Just over 11 years ago, a longshoreman stood among a group of maritime people at dockside in Newark, N.J., watching a new automated method of handling cargo. Big plywood boxes loaded with material were being lifted by huge, humming cranes and stacked gently onto the deck of a specially built ship. Midway through the demonstration, sponsored by Sea Land, the longshoreman turned to a friend and murmured, "The best thing we can do is sink this thing where she sits right now/' That was the American dock worker's first response to a development called containerization. At the moment, the International Longshoreman's Association is locked in negotiations with the shipping industry precisely over the "box issue." To the longshoreman containerization means automation and represents a threat to his employment. But to industry, containerization is a transportation boom. This is why the chemical industry is intensively studying this revolutionary way of shipping goods. Containerization is more than just automated handling of cargo. It is a system of moving goods from, for example, barge to truck to train to ship to port to customer virtually without stop. The air freight industry will swoop in on the action, too, particularly when Lockheed begins delivering its jumbo jets to carriers in 1971. These enormous big-bellied craft are designed mainly to carry containers. Containerization hasn't been ballyhooed in the chemical industry as much as it has been around transportation circles. To some in the chemical industry containerization is old hat. For example, Union Carbide, which owns three container ships that constantly move polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride from Texas City, Tex., to Perth Amboy, N.J., says it's been using the concept for years. And Ethyl Corp. has been transporting metallic sodium to the Mediterranean in container ships for months now. Du Pont, which claims that only the military exceeds the company in use of containerization, says that 70% of Du Pont's materials shipped from North Atlantic ports to the United Kingdom and the Continent are sent in containers. "Today," says the company, "about 340 truck-size containers a month are loaded at company plants, moved by rail or truck to loading ports, and placed on ships for delivery to customers outside the U.S. About one fourth of all Du Pont's shipments—or some 20 C&EN NOV. 25, 1968
CONTAINER SHIP. Artist's rendering of a new ship that may soon ply the world's oceans shows containerized cargo being unloaded onto waiting barges
50,000 tons of goods—was moved in container ships in the last 12 months." And the figure promises to rise. By 1975, more than half of all the goods shipped will go in containers. This will no doubt bring about changes in regulations, shifts in the ranking of ports, development of new transportation companies, even—as is already happening—rearrangement of corporate structures. More than one chemical company has combined its shipping and purchasing departments so that intracompany coordination can match the integration of different transportation modes. Du Pont says containerization has enabled the company to save 10% in ocean freight costs alone. "In my view," says Robert F. Edwards, general manager of Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, Liverpool, England, "the ultimate development will be the extension and consolidation of genuine through container services—the complete integration of road, rail, and sea transport into an international network of routes. It is quite remarkable to see how easy it is to link the Eastern and Western Hemispheres with new trade routes, basically transpacific, trans-American, transatlantic, trans-European." Mr. Edwards, whose port has embarked on a $100 million modernization program, gives an example. The present voyage on a ship between Japan and Hamburg, he says, takes 30 days. The same ship would call on Rotterdam in 35 days and Liverpool in 41 days. "A container service in the new concept," he explains, "would take nine days from Japan to the U.S. West Coast, its containerized cargoes would cross the United States in three days, and be shipped across the Atlantic to Liverpool in say seven days, and be in the European hinterland two days later." Virtually every port in the country has plans to expand and modernize for the accelerating growth of containerization. These include Cleveland, Ohio, Erie, Pa., Baltimore, Md., Norfolk, Va., Savannah, Ga., Charleston,
S.C., Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla., Mobile, Ala., Gulfport, Miss., New Orleans, La., and Seattle, Wash. Jacksonville has been especially ambitious with its Blount Island project, now nearing completion. When its facilities are fully developed, Jacksonville plans to be the biggest container port in the South and to be the Atlantic Coast terminal in the South for the forthcoming land-bridge movement of goods across the continent. But Charleston and Savannah are also vying for the prize. Hampton Roads, Va., with the New York area ports, should get the midcontinent route. In the North, Halifax, Nova Scotia, is claiming priority (C&EN, June 17, page 30). The land bridge idea is simply the swift movement of cargo off a container ship onto a container train that rolls across the continent to waiting container ships. The land bridge, however likely, is still in the future. Containerization is only now coming into its own on the traditional trade routes. In the North Atlantic, says acting Maritime Administrator Lewis Gulick, about 28% of the commercial liner cargo was containerized during thefirsthalf of 1968. He estimates that 5000 containers a week will be moving on that route by the end of this year. Pacific container movement lags, however, with only 3.6% of the traffic containerized. But, says Gulick, "during the second half of 1968 it is anticipated that there will be a substantial increase in Pacific container ship service as the result of the introduction of large-capacity Japanese container ships and the possible advent of American flag container ships." (One container ship carries about four times the cargo a conventional ship of equal size carries.) What approach should the chemical industry take toward containerization? Each company has its own formula, or at least is working on one. This is Mr. Gulick's: • Containers do not offer total success through materials handling alone. Their success is as transportation units.
That's only part of what we are. We're than live in Bainbridge ( 1 0 % of them factures car models. With sales pushing $250 million, we the industrial chemicals, specialty work in research and develppment). have a story worth telling. Send for We speak chemicals in every lanchemicals, colors, plastics and petroguage, and our line of over 4,000 prod- our new brochure and find out how chemicals people. manyofourproductsyou're using right Our divisions form a diversified and ucts meets the needs of a range of experienced chemical complex, inte- industries including coatings, paper, now. Tomorrow we'll be pffering you grated back to a strong natural re- rubber, textiles, food, agriculture, phar- even more. sources position. We have 57 plants maceuticals, automotive production, from Botany, Australia to Bainbridge, and graphic arts. We operate more New York. We employ more people quality control labs than Ford manu- 3 0 0 East 4 2 n d Street, New York, New York 1 0 0 1 7
Tenneco Chemicals, Inc.
"Tenneco Chemicals? V* You m e a n t h e Petrochemicalsp§bpm? 9 *
£
JINNICO
TENNECO CHEMICALS, INC.. A MAJOR D I V I S I O N OF M T N N I C O ) ) TENNECO I N C . WHICH ALSO INCLUDES: J g K & j
TENNESSEE GAS TRANSMISSION CO. ^ W « | ^ TENNECO OIL CO. f M )
PACKAGING CORPORATION OF AMERICA / * 2 k \ K E R N
C0UNTY
L A N 0
c o
H!
PFIZER TALKS PLASTICS SPECIALTIES, YOU'RE GETTING A LONG, LONG LINE.
Hi PRODUCTS Additives Antistat™61* Antistat 68 Monomers Fumaric Acid Morflex® DBF Morflex DIOF Morflex DOF Itaconic Acid Dimethyl Itaconate Dibutyl Itaconate Polyesters Morflex P-50 Morester® 905 Morester 939 Morester 942 Morester 960 Morester 969* Morester 973* Morester 984* Morester 1176 Intermediates Sorbitol Benzoic Acid
CHARACTERISTICS Cationic Organic Electrolyte Cationic Organic Electrolyte
Oil-soluble antistatic agent Water-soluble antistatic agent
Unsaturated Dibasic Acid Dibutyl Fumarate Diisooctyl Fumarate Di(2-Ethylhexyl) Fumarate Unsaturated Dibasic Acid Unsaturated Diester Unsaturated Diester
Carboxylated monomer for rosins For vinyl copolymers as adhesives For vinyl copolymers as coatings For vinyl copolymers as coatings Carboxylated monomer for latexes Monomer for homo- and co-polymerization Monomer for homo- and co-polymerization
Polyester, Saturated Polyester, Saturated Polyester, Saturated Polyester, Saturated Polyester, Saturated (Branched) Polyester, Saturated Polyester, Saturated Polyester, Saturated Polyester, Saturated (Branched)
High MW—for urethane coatings For urethane foams and binders For urethane elastomers and adhesives For urethane elastomers and adhesives For urethane elastomers For urethane elastomers Low MW—for urethane elastomers Intermediate MW—for urethane elastomers For urethane maintenance enamels
For specific information—for special formulations custom-compounded to your precise requirements —call your Pfizer representative. Or write: Chas. Pfizer & Co., Inc., Chemical Division, 235 East 42nd St., New York, New York 10017.
"Commercial development products 22 C&EN
izer
CHEMICAL DIVISION
• Boxes aren't the sole answer. Containers can be flats, gondolas, or tanks that are ventilated, insulated, or refrigerated. "As long as they fit into the intermodal concept they will pay off." The biggest challenge is to management—by the carrier, the coordinator, the handler, the land transport companies, and the customers. But somehow, the labor crisis will have to be solved. One machine-operating dock worker at a container port replaces about 15 longshoremen. The industry says more jobs will be created in industries that grow up around container technology. That is undoubtedly true. But it doesn't solve the plight of the 50-year-old stevedore suddenly laid off by the presence of a crane. "Port labor is determined not to be boxed in by the container," proclaims Teddy Gleason, president of the International Longshoremans Association. "I classed containerization as a form of automation when it first showed up . . . experts on labor problems poohhooed this as a 'misunderstanding of what automation really was/ They did this because they did not understand the nature of longshore work, and because they got trapped within the limits of the definitions they had written about the automation of factory work processes." Mr. Gleason wants his longshoremen assigned to all the new jobs that containerization will open on the docks. These issues are currently clouding talks between ILA and the shipping industry. If no agreement is reached by Dec. 20, the ILA strike on Gulf and Atlantic ports will resume. Mr. Gleason's dock workers will somehow be worked into the economic promise of containerization—a promise that Dow traffic men say is great. H. G. Kavanagh, manager of traffic services, says his company is "very optimistic" about its place in the container revolution. "We see continued growth and additional applications as our national and international business continues to grow. Right now our major plants are participating and others are getting into it. There's even the possibility of more liquid bulk work. The problems are in getting the containers returned. But these problems should be solved with advancing technology." For the chemical industry the issue is extremely complicated because the industry ships an enormous variety of liquids and solids in various tonnages. The key point, however, is the term "intermodal." That development underscores today's transport revolution, to which the chemical industry is beginning to pay closer attention.
WORLD TRADE
By EARL ANDERSON Senior Editor
Unfinished business in trade Ambassador William M. Roth, the President's special trade representative who had to race the clock to reach an agreement in the Kennedy round, is racing the clock again. He will leave his post around the middle of next month to accept a position at Harvard's Kennedy Center. But before he leaves, he hopes to clean up some unfinished business. The chemical industry will watch his progress closely, because two possible developments involve American Selling Price (ASP), the controversial tariff system that the industry has fought to retain. In a separate package (the ASP package) negotiated in the Kennedy round, the U.S. agreed to abolish ASP, subject to Congressional approval. In exchange, European countries, particularly the Common Market countries and Britain, agreed to make an additional 30% reduction in their chemical tariffs and to adjust certain nontariff barriers. After extensive hearings this summer, the House Ways and Means Committee failed to act on the Administration's proposed trade bill that, among other things, called for the repeal of ASP. The ASP agreement expires at the end of the year, and Ambassador Roth would like to keep it alive. He intends to press the Europeans into extending the terms of the ASP package for at least another year, so the next Administration can put the ASP issue before Congress again if it chooses. Presumably, the Europeans feel as strongly about ASP as they did when they vigorously attacked it during the Kennedy round negotiations and will agree to an extension. ASP figures in another piece of unfinished business too. Early this year, when the balance of payments crisis peaked, the U.S. asked its trading partners for help in buoying its faltering balance of trade. The Common Market and other European countries offered to accelerate the pace of their planned Kennedy round tariff cuts. They would make their third 10% cut in January 1969, instead of in January 1970 as scheduled (they already had cut their tariffs by 20% in July). At the same time, they would allow the U.S. to postpone by one year the 10% tariff cut (its second) scheduled for January 1969. Naturally, there were strings attached to this offer. At the time, protectionist sentiment was building up in this country, and several proposals were made to adopt import quotas and border taxes. The European countries said that adopting such trade-restrictive legislation would kill their proposal. They also conditioned their offer upon the repeal of ASP. The French economic crisis sidetracked the proposal, but now Ambassador Roth would like to see it implemented. The U.S. trade balance can use all the help it can get, even more so than when the offer wasfirstmade. The trade surplus this year will get no higher than $1.5 billion, compared to last year's $4.1 billion. The Europeans may well renew their offer to accelerate their tariff cuts, if only to ward off new protectionist legislation in the U.S. In addition, the acceleration will give them additional leverage in their fight to erase ASP. There is one other factor to consider. The Europeans may feel that it is to their advantage to deal with the present Administration in the short time that it has left, rather than wait for the Nixon Administration. The Republicans have indicated that they will take a tougher stand on trade affairs. Before he leaves office, Ambassador Roth also plans to finish his report containing recommendations for future U.S. trade policy. This report has been in the making since the Trade Information Committee held its hearings last spring. How much influence his recommendations will have on the new Administration, however, remains to be seen.
NOV. 25, 1968 C&EN 23
