The largest container ship to ever call at a port in the United States is scheduled to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles’ APM Terminals-Pier 400 this Saturday, December 26.

 

Earlier this month, France-based CMA CGM, the third-largest shipping company in the world, deployed a container vessel with capacity to hold nearly 18,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs), about a third larger than the biggest ships currently calling at the San Pedro Bay ports, according to Port of Los Angeles officials.

(Image provided by CMA CGM)

 

The CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin is longer than the Empire State Building at 1,300 feet long, wider than an American football field at 177 feet wide and about as tall as a 20-floor building at 197 feet high.

 

CMA CGM states that the decision by Chairman and CEO Jacques R. Saadé to deploy the vessel shows the shipping company’s “faith in long-term growth potential of the U.S. economy, and its commitment to increasing its U.S. market share.”

 

Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said in a statement that CMA CGM’s decision to deploy the large vessel “signals a new chapter in Pacific Rim trade flow and supply chain optimization.”