Marine Terminal Operators

A marine terminal operator is the company that physically handles your container at the port. It owns or leases the berth, works the cranes, stacks the box in the yard and hands it to whichever trucker turns up with the right release. It is not your carrier and it is not your broker — you rarely choose it, because it comes with the terminal your carrier calls at. It matters anyway, for three reasons: it sets the free-time clock and the demurrage rate you will be billed at, it decides the appointment system your drayage carrier has to fight with, and its tariff is a published document you are entitled to read before you are invoiced against it. Federal law (46 U.S.C. § 40102(15)) defines an MTO as a person furnishing wharfage, dock, warehouse or other terminal facilities in connection with a common carrier, and MTOs file an FMC-1 with the Federal Maritime Commission saying where that tariff is published. Every company below appears on the FMC’s own FMC-1 marine terminal operator report. That filing is the fact we publish: it records the tariff, not which port the company works today, and this register carries no address, so these entries have no location of their own.