Offshore view. (Wall Street West).

Nearly a million shipping containers, each 10 feet by 10 feet wide, and 40 feet long, pass through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports every month, when the ports are in full swing.

Probably not one in 1,000 is internally inspected, though officials are closemouthed about the topic. There has been concern that terrorists could conceal explosives in a container, and bring them onshore with little problem.

Hawthorne-based OSI Systems Inc. has gained attention for its image-making equipment used to screen passengers boarding airplanes. But OSI also sells larger, more powerful X-ray equipment, which can visually penetrate even steel-hulled containers to reveal what's within, said Sanjay Sabnani, director of new business development at OSI.

"We are installing a $10 million system on the border between Hong Kong and China," he said. "One truck per minute, each loaded with a container, can pass through the facility."

Despite its success in selling cargo container X-ray equipment overseas -- Malaysia, South Korea, Romania, Taiwan and Australia have also placed orders -- OSI expects little in the way of domestic cargo-container X-ray sales, and no tunnel-like buildings of the kind they built in Hong Kong.

"It is a jurisdictional mess at the harbor," explained Sabnani.

Moreover, there is no land available near the ports to place the large X-ray structure.

OSI has another $3 million X-ray machine, mounted on a truck, which can be maneuvered around a port to look into containers.

Staff Reporter Conor Dougherty and Dennis Walters of Bloomberg News contributed to this column. Contributing columnist Benjamin Mark Cole can be reached at [e-mail].