TOC Americas 2026 · Day 2 highlights
Wednesday 21 October · Cartagena
Day 2 of TOC Americas 2026 in Cartagena: 8 stories from CSC LIVE.
Six panellists in Cartagena weigh the global cost of going green
Dominik Englert of the World Bank Group told TOC Americas delegates in Cartagena that energy efficiency upgrades are a no-regret investment for ports, whatever fuel eventually dominates shipping. A World Bank study identified seven prime investment opportunities in Colombia’s La Guajira, Barranquilla and Cartagena to produce alternative fuels competitively, Englert said, with the biggest market potential in exports to Korea, Japan and the European Union. BIMCO’s Thomas Damsgaard warned the industry will be short 30,000 officers a year on the global fleet until 2030, while dynaCERT’s Kevin Unrath cautioned against betting on a single fuel: “We need to be careful not to say this is the winner.”
CSC LIVE · Read more
Beyond the terminal gate: four views on what really makes a port work
Paulo Ruy, senior vice-president commercial for Latin America at Hanseatic Global Terminals, told delegates at TOC Americas in Cartagena that a terminal’s value now depends on the roads, rail links and connectivity beyond its own gates, not just performance inside them. Jorge Chávez, managing director of Peru’s national port authority, said the country’s port development portfolio has reached about $9bn, including a roughly $600m APM Terminals expansion at Callao, the terminal handling 80–85% of Peru’s cargo. Tom van Eynde of TiL Group pointed to North America’s growing dependence on rail partners to move cargo inland, while Victor Carrasco of COMPAS said the real challenge is cultural: “We can always do more with less.”
CSC LIVE · Read more
Stumped by the green fuel “chicken and egg” standoff? Start small, says World Bank
Dominik Englert of the World Bank Group told delegates at TOC Americas in Cartagena that the maritime fuel transition is stuck in a chicken-and-egg standoff: shipowners won’t invest in new-fuel vessels until ports can supply them, and ports won’t invest until the ships exist. A World Bank study found seven prime investment opportunities for producing alternative fuels in Colombia, concentrated in La Guajira, Barranquilla and Cartagena, with export markets in Asia and Europe the biggest prize, Englert said. Rather than wait for international regulators to settle on a single fuel, he urged ports to pursue efficiency gains now, since “these are no-regret options.”
CSC LIVE · Read more
From port to trade node: five views on connecting the Americas' hinterland
Robert Barceló, of Port Everglades, told a TOC Americas panel that ports increasingly depend on the markets around them rather than their own four walls, with about 80% of the port’s cargo moving within an 80-mile radius. Jacksonville Port Authority’s David Briceno said the port now serves about 98 million consumers through its rail links, while TRANSFERPORT’s Juan Ricardo Noero said rail saves shippers between 25% and 27% against trucking. APM Terminals’ Denson White pointed to a deeper bottleneck: “There’s dwell time in Los Angeles right now that’s 10 days.”
CSC LIVE · Read more
Energy exports pull trade through Gulf ports, says APM Terminals’ White
Denson White, who leads intermodal for North America at APM Terminals in Mobile, Alabama, told TOC Americas that trade flows are shifting from Asia to Latin America and that Gulf ports are well placed to capture the move, pointing to LNG and CNG exports as a fast-growing opportunity. Rail can carry containers up to 67,000 pounds against 45,000 pounds by road, White said, adding almost 50% more cargo per box. Persuading ocean carriers used to filling large vessels into Miami and Los Angeles to use smaller Gulf ports remains a challenge, he said: “their mentality and what they’re doing is a little bit different.”
CSC LIVE · Read more
Political uncertainty adds 10–15% to Latin America port costs, says Ruy
Paulo Ruy of Hanseatic Global Terminals told TOC Americas that political and regulatory uncertainty has pushed up the cost of investing in Latin American ports. The risk premium built into investment calculations has risen by at least 10–15% across the region, and by almost 50% in some countries, Ruy said. Brazil’s Santos complex is already capacity-constrained while its TECON Santos 10 expansion awaits the outcome of elections, and efforts to pass sustainability costs to customers have stalled because, as Ruy put it, “no one wants to pay that bill.”
CSC LIVE · Read more
Tariffs relocate trade, not destroy it, says TiL’s van Eynde
Tom van Eynde of terminal operator TiL Group told TOC Americas in Cartagena that tariffs relocate cargo between ports rather than destroying trade overall, citing flows shifting from Canadian ports into TiL’s US terminals as evidence. Once tariffs settle into a range of 10 to 15%, van Eynde said, the impact on volume becomes minimal; the bigger damage comes instead from sudden announcements that spark front-loaded surges terminals are not equipped to absorb. Unlike carriers, which can deploy extra vessels and benefit from higher freight rates, van Eynde said, “We are the ones who are taking the biggest hit from these kind of things.”
CSC LIVE · Read more
Five rail lines give Mobile an edge over rival Gulf ports, says APM Terminals’ White
Denson White, Intermodal North America lead for APM Terminals, told TOC Americas that the company’s Mobile, Alabama terminal connects to five Class 1 railroads, reaching nearly all of North America and parts of Canada in about four days. He said shippers moving from truck to rail can lift container weight from 45,000 to 67,000 pounds, adding almost 50% more cargo per box. The bigger shift, White argued, is moving distribution away from coastal gateways and inland to where consumers actually are: “Why are we taking the box to these cities that are the hinterland markets and then distribute from there?”
CSC LIVE · Read more
Tomorrow: Interview: Leonard Field, TOC Americas (CSC LIVE, ) · Holistic approach to safety (TECH TOC, 11:00)