Containerisation: Is it an Unsung Hero of Globalisation?

This article was written by Robert Morris, and discuses the development and subsequent impact of the
shipping container. It is explained that these were crucial to developing globalisation in the 20th century,
and this essay is useful both as a piece of comprehension, and launch a classroom discussion on
globalisation. It is also possible to pose supporting questions and activities to gain the most from the
article.

Supporting questions:
1. What are the advantages of transporting goods in shipping containers?
2. What might influence the location of large container ports?
3. Where in the world do you think most shipping containers come from, and what can that tell us
about world trade?

Globalisation is covered in most current AS and A2 specifications and students are required to learn how
trade in particular has influenced the growth of linkages between countries. World trade, in particular,
has risen over twenty-seven fold since 1950 and has been both a primary cause and effect of
globalisation. This has been due to a number of factors - the liberalisation of world trade through the
formation of the World Trade Organisation and the global shift in manufacturing to newly emerging
economies. Central to this growth in trade has been the use of the humble shipping container. Every
day, huge ships leave ports all over the world laden with goods ranging from frozen meat to consumer
electronics. It has been one of the primary agents of globalisation, yet its impact is often ignored.

The Development of the Container

The modern shipping container owes its origins to an American truck driver called Malcolm McLean. In
the years before the Second World War, he wasted many hours waiting at docks waiting for his truck to
be unloaded and the goods loaded on to ships.

In the 1950's, he owned his own shipping company and in order to improve efficiency, worked with
engineer Keith Tantlinger to develop the modern container. They designed a shipping container that
could efficiently be carried by trucks or trains and be loaded onto ships as well as being secure on long
sea voyages.

The design incorporated a locking mechanism on each of the four corners, allowing the container to be
easily secured and lifted using cranes. After helping McLean make the successful design, Tantlinger
convinced him to give the patented designs to industry; this began international standardisation of
shipping containers.

http://www.geography.org.uk/resources/containerisation/
Container Ports

Malcolm McLean introduced the first container-ship in to service in 1956, when he used a converted oil
tanker to ship 58 containers from Newark, New Jersey to Houston, Texas. Originally, McLean intended
that containers would remain with their trucks and trailers and they would roll on and roll off (ro-ro)
rather like the many ferries that link mainland Europe and Britain and Ireland. Instead, he modified his
design so the containers were lifted on and lifted off (lo-lo) and this resulted in the redesign of ports, the
infrastructure used such as cranes and the ships themselves.

In the first 15 years of containerisation, many companies copied McLean's ideas but not his standardised
measurements, hence there were many different incompatible systems in operation. In the late 1960's,
the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) introduced standardised dimensions for
shipping containers including the 20 ft and 40 ft containers. The impact of these changes did much to
greatly reduce the expense of international trade and increased its speed, especially of consumer goods
and commodities. It also dramatically changed the port cities worldwide. Prior to containerisation,
teams of dockers would manually manoeuvre individual cargoes into the hold of ships. After
containerisation, large numbers of dockers were no longer needed in port facilities and many were
forced to find work in other areas of the economy.

Meanwhile, the port facilities needed to support containerisation changed. One effect was the decline
of some ports and the rise of others. In Liverpool, the docks used for loading and unloading were no
longer fit for purpose as there was little room for the space needed for container storage and transport
as well as the size of ships had increased dramatically.

In 1965, dock labour could move only 1.7 tonnes per hour onto a cargo ship that may have remained in
port for a week or more. By 1970, 30 tonnes per hour could be loaded on to a ship. This allowed bigger
ships to be used and ships could leave port the same day. This slashed journey time from door to door
by half and reliability increased because containers could be packed and sealed at the factory, losses to
theft (and insurance rates) plummeted. It is now possible to shift $500,000 worth of consumer
electronics from Shanghai to Felixstowe for about £2, 000, while the cost of transporting a similar value
of Scotch Whiskey from Liverpool to Tokyo would be around £1,400.

Meanwhile, Felixstowe has become the UKs most important container port handling nearly 2 million
containers a year - 3.4 million TEU (40% of the UKs container trade) from some 4000 ships that travel to
and from 365 ports around the world. Felixstowe is situated 90 miles north east of London on the North
Sea coast of Suffolk and has good (but often congested) road links with London and the Midlands via the
A12 and A14. The port has been dredged to make it a very deep water port and as a result can
accommodate the largest container ships in the world, with a draft (depth of ship below water) of nearly
50 foot. Yet Felixstowe was only the 36th largest container port in the world in terms of volume of
containers handled in 2012 and 7th largest in the EU. However, much of Britain’s trade is with its EU
partners and much of this trade comes via ro-ro ferries from the European mainland through ports like
Dover, Harwich, Hull and Portsmouth. In 2011, around 46% of the 15.4 million TEUs imported into
Britain entered by ro-ro ferry on the back of trucks from elsewhere in Europe.

Over time the use of containers has reshaped global trade. Ports have bigger and their number smaller
as more types of goods can be traded. Speed and reliability of shipping have enabled ‘just-in-time’
production, which in turn allowed firms to grow leaner and more responsive to markets as even distant
suppliers could now provide components quickly and on schedule.

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International supply chains have become more intricate and inclusive. This helped accelerate
industrialisation in emerging economies such as China. Trade links have enabled developing economies
simply to join existing supply chains rather than build an entire industry from the ground up.

Given the growth of world trade and the global shift of manufacturing to South-East Asia, it comes as no
surprise that China dominates container traffic. It is estimated that around 26% of container traffic
originates in China, while 97% of all containers are made in China.

Container Ships

Container ships are measured by the number of containers they can carry. As containers come in two
sizes, it is normal to count them by the number of twenty foot containers they can carry or Twenty Foot
Equivalents (TEU). The largest ships are known as Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV) and are up to 400
m in length (the length of over 3 football pitches) and can carry over 15,000 TEUs. However, there are a
number of places in the world where these largest ships cannot sail.

The Panama Canal for many years has been an obstacle for large shipping as the maximum size of a ship
able to use the canal has been restricted to a length of 965 ft (294 m), a width of 106 ft (32 m) and draft
of 39 ft (12 m). This meant that ships that carry a maximum of 5,000 TEU can only currently use the
canal. Ships that are too large and cannot transit the canal are known as Post-Panamax.

In 2006, the people of Panama voted to expand the capacity of the Panama Canal by widening sections
and expanding the lock sections. The cost of this development is in excess of $5 billion but is expected to
increase the earnings of the Panamanian nation. Ships of up to 1200 ft (366 m) in length, a width of 161
ft (49 m), a draft of 50 ft (15 m) and a capacity of around 15,000 TEU will now be able to use the canal.

In the future, container ships will only be constrained by the Mallacamax dimensions - the maximum
size of ships that can safely pass through the Straits of Mallaca, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans
past the port of Singapore, the world’s second largest container port. This is a length of 1540 ft (470m)
and a width of 200 ft (60m).

There are concerns that the world’s merchant fleet that also contains oil tankers and bulk carriers (that
carry goods such as coal and metal ores) are responsible for adding greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere and contributing to climate change. Large ships such as those carrying containers use
‘bunker fuel’ - the dirtiest liquid fuel around. It's frequently so viscous that it barely flows. Bunker fuel
has up to 2000 times the sulphur permitted in the diesel fuel that's used for road vehicles and therefore
a major polluter of the atmosphere.

Conclusion

The most profound impact of the container is on the global economy as a whole. Worldwide, in 2012,
560 million TEUs were shipped, with over a quarter of those shipments coming from China.

Globalisation and container shipping enjoy a reciprocal relationship. There is no

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Containerisation has been a facilitator of globalisation, like the development of the internet and
introduction of long haul flights. Globalisation has resulted in shifting of employment among cities,
regions and countries. It has also lowered costs to consumers and enabled delivery of a much wider
varieties of goods to many markets. Globalisation has affected not only economies but the environment,
politics, and culture. The shipping container, a simple technology intended to speed the
loading/unloading of goods, has played an important part in those changes.

The Author

Robert Morris teaches at Shrewsbury School. He has taught and examined A level Geography for over 30
years and is also an author for a number of publishers.

Further references

A video with author Mark Levinson who wrote a book about containerisation called ‘The Box’
http://maersklinesocial.com/the-unsung-hero-of-globalisation/

Two videos from TED Talks:

http://www.ted.com/talks/rose_george_inside_the_secret_shipping_industry

http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-containerization-shaped-the-modern-world

In 2008, the BBC tracked a shipping container for a year. More details can be found here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/2008/the_box/default.stm

The Box that Changed Britain - video from BBC - can be found here: http://vimeo.com/21395880 but is
available on Clickview if your school or college subscribes and is regularly shown on BBC4.

http://www.geography.org.uk/resources/containerisation/
London Gateway and other new ports

London Gateway is a new port facility on the north shore of the Thames Estuary on the site of a former
oil refinery. The new port has been funded by a company from the UAE - Dubai Ports World (DP World)
and is of a similar to design to the Jebel Ali port in the UAE. DP World own and operate 60 ports all over
the world including many in the BRICS countries and have 11 more in development.

London Gateway provides 2,700 metres of quay, six deep-water berths with depth alongside of 17
metres, 24 giant quay cranes and an annual capacity of 3.5 million TEU- similar to that of Felixstowe. It
will make London a hub for international trade once again as warehouses and new roads and railways
will be built to make it a “multi-modal hub.”

London Gateway provides excellent accessibility, with the UK’s best tidal access; road connections to the
North, South, East and West via an eight-lane highway; and the UK’s largest port rail terminal with
access to the country’s major rail hubs. More than 30% of London Gateway port traffic is expected to go
by rail.

In addition, shippers have access to London Gateway’s 9 million square foot logistics park, Europe’s
largest consumer market and existing distribution hubs in the UK’s Midlands.

Liverpool’s container port is also being expanded in a development called Liverpool2. After completion,
it will be able to accommodate ships up to 13,500 TEU capacity (currently it is only 4,500 TEU). Like
London Gateway, it will also be a multi-modal hub and have extensive transport links.

Containers by Number
There are 17 million shipping containers in the world. At any one time, between 5 and 6 million are in
transit on ships, trucks and trains.
In total, containers make around 200 million trips a year.
There are 90,000 ocean-going cargo ships.
Each ship expects to operate 24hrs a day for about 280 days a year.
The world's biggest container ships have 109,000 horsepower engines which weigh 2,300 tons.
Shipping is responsible for 18-30% of all the world's nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution and 9% of the global
sulphur oxide (SOx) pollution.
One large ship can generate about 5,000 tonnes of sulphur oxide (SOx) pollution in a year
70% of all ship emissions are within 400km of land.
85% of all ship pollution is in the northern hemisphere.
Shipping is responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions

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Flags of Convenience

Many shipping companies register ships in a country different from that of the ship's owners, and flying
that state's flag on the ship. This is called a flag of convenience. Ships are registered under flags of
convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the regulations of the owner's country.
The countries with the largest merchant fleets are Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands that make
up nearly 40% of the worlds total. In these countries, regulations concerning shipping especially those
concerned with pollution are lax and allows companies to earn greater profits.

Table 1:

World’s Busiest Container Ports

Rank Port Millions of TEU (2012)

1 Shanghai, China 34.5

2 Singapore 31.7

3 Hong Kong 23.1

4 Shenzhen, China 22.9

5 Guangzou, China 17.7

6 Busan, South Korea 17.0

7 Ningbo-Zhoushan, China 16.8

8 Qingdao, China 14.5

9 Dubai, UAE 13.3

10 Tianjin, China 12.3

11 Rotterdam, Netherlands 11.1

12 Port Klang, Malaysia 10.0

13 Kaohsiung, Taiwan 9.8

14 Hamburg, Germany 8.7

15 Antwerp, Belgium 8.6

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16 Los Angeles, USA 8.1

17 Dalian, China 8.0

18 Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia 7.5

19 Xiamen, China 7.1

20 Jakarta, Indonesia 6.2

Table 2:

Busiest British Container Ports

Rank Port Millions of TEU (2011)

1 Felixstowe 3.25

2 Southampton 1.6

3 London 0.74

4 Liverpool 0.66

5 Medway 0.40

6 Tees and Hartlepool 0.26

7 Edinburgh 0.25

8 Belfast 0.22

9 Hull 0.22

10 Grimsby & Immingham 0.13

Note: These ports are measured by TEUs that are lo-lo. Dover handled around 2 million TEUs in the same
year all of which were ro-ro.

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