The event is one of the first in a series of activities being organized by UASC to celebrate 40 years in business and was attended by senior dignitaries and officials including Dr. Khaled Fahmy, Minister of Environment (Egypt), Admiral Mohab Mameesh, Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Basil Al-Zaid, Chief Financial Officer at UASC, Nevine El-Messeery CEO of AUB and Captain Emad Oraby, the General Manager of UASAC Egypt.

Attendees were taken on a guided tour on board M.V. Al Zubara, while sailing through the new Suez Canal passage, where Admiral Mohab Mameesh presented a brief introduction to the strategic project.

“Initiating UASC’s 40th anniversary celebrations from the Suez Canal makes perfect sense given its strategic location, being the fastest maritime route connecting Asia to Europe. UASC’s vessels passed through the Suez Canal around 295 times last year, reflecting its’ importance to us. Having the new canal operational has helped to reduce our vessel’s transit time, which of course, reflects positively on the company”, said Basil Al-Zaid, Chief Financial Officer at UASC. “This celebration is to mark our long term partnership with the Suez Canal and Ahli United Bank, which not only facilitates our passage payments in the Canal, but has also contributed to financing UASC’s current newbuilding program, comprising 17 new ships among the most cost-efficient and environmentally friendly in the world.”

Ahli United Bank, with a strategic goal of developing support for the region’s economy, established a special division to support the shipping industry. The bank facilitates canal passing payments, port projects and berths, as well as supporting the financing of the investment project to develop the canal area.

To date, UASC has received five 18,800TEU class vessels; Barzan, Al Muraykh, Al Nefud, Al Zubara and Al Dahna respectively. This superior series of vessels are considered the world’s greenest due to their outstanding environmental credentials and first-class technology on board. Putting these advanced vessels to the test Al Muraykh achieved a record breaking load of 18,601 TEU last month. This unprecedented westbound shipment was also UASC’s highest utilization to date of this very eco-efficient class, meaning the CO2 output per TEU on this journey is set to be more than 60% lower if the same containers were shipped on board a 13,500 TEU ship.

The goal of the program, introduced at a special OTR Safety Day last month at the terminal, is to reduce the risk of accident or injury to outside truck drivers with business at the Pier 400 facility, by keeping drivers inside of their truck cabs at all times within the terminal, or in specifically designated and protected areas where the drivers may exit their cabs to lock the pins which hold containers onto container chassis.

“Our intention is to continue to improve safety performance by increasing the separation between people and machines” said APM Terminals Pier 400 Los Angeles Managing Director, Steven Trombley, adding “Put simply: keep drivers in their truck cabs while inside the terminal, or provide them additional safeguards if this is unavoidable”.

Four specific steps were taken to implement the new terminal safety procedures: the creation of designated areas for drivers to lock (after pick-up) or unlock (prior to delivery) the pins on chassis, away from the heavy container moving equipment in continuous operation in a modern container terminal; a redesigned area for truck driver parking to address gate transaction problems; and a redesigned Chassis Exchange area for improved safety during the pick-up and drop-off of empty container chassis. The Trucker Safety Day activities included APM Terminals Pier 400 Management Team members personally greeting every driver entering the facility on December 2nd, 2015, and presenting them with a Safety Message and Expectations, as well as a promotional item, and the hosting of a luncheon for local trucking organization leaders, along with managers and dispatchers. A Trucker Safety video, which will be required for all truck divers entering the facility, was also given an advance screening.

The arrival of the newest classes of Ultra-Large Container Ships (ULCS) of 10,000 TEU capacity and above at the world’s major container ports in the past two years has drawn new attention to the need for enhanced terminal safety procedures as terminal truck traffic and container handling activity increase in response to larger container volumes moving onto and off of the vessels while in port. On December 26th APM Terminals Pier 400 was the maiden US port call of the 18,000 TEU capacity-class CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, the largest container ship to call at a North American port. During the vessel’s 56-hours of terminal operations 11,200 containers were handled. Earlier in 2015, in March, APM Terminals Pier 400 set another record as the first US port to accommodate three ULCS of 13,000-TEU class size simultaneously, with 34,465 container moves.