Port growth and expansion in the Southeast

April 7, 2008 by SwizStick  
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Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston. These are just three of a number of Southeastern U.S. ports that are seeing growth and expansion while the key ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach and Oakland saw freight volumes flatten or decline in 2007. Customers who want to avoid the high costs and bottlenecks of Los Angeles/Long Beach have been driving up demand for trans-Pacific All-Water services to the East Coast and it shows. Via World Trade Magazine:

Savannah:

As for ocean cargo activity, Georgia’s two deepwater ports—Savannah and Brunswick—are poised for continued growth this year. In fact, the Port of Savannah is experiencing major gains in both container traffic and real estate development. The port surpassed 2 million TEUs in fiscal 2006 and now ranks as one of the fastest-growing in the nation.

Charleston:

According to Byron D. Miller, Director, Public Relations, South Carolina State Ports Authority, “Over the past year, the Port of Charleston has put into operation approximately $64 million in new and upgraded equipment, including 16 new rubber tire gantry cranes (RTGs) for stacking containers in the yard, and 4 new super post-Panamax dockside cranes. The new cranes are making a difference in vessel productivity—January 2008 was the most productive month ever at the Port of Charleston, with an average of 41.5 moves per hour per crane logged.”

Jacksonville:

“Perhaps the most exciting development at the Port of Tampa is the port’s emergence as a bona fide container port with global connections,” points out Andy Fobes, Director of Public Relations. “Zim Integrated Shipping Services’ Asia-Gulf Express service calls weekly at the Port of Tampa Container Terminal. The service includes ten 3,000-TEU vessels. At the same time, the port has impressive plans to increase the size and infrastructure of the container terminal in the years ahead and is in line with the business opportunities that will come with the expansion of the Panama Canal, expected to be completed in 2014.”

Similar to other ports in the Southeast, JAXPORT is supported both by a strong and growing regional economy, and escalating container volumes.

One of the most anticipated projects in the works is MOL’s (www.molpower.com) new 130-acre TraPac Container Terminal at Dames Point, set for completion later this year. The $220 million TraPac Container Terminal marks the port’s entry into the Asian container trade and will double JAXPORT’s box business. The facility is expected to bring 6,000 direct and indirect jobs to Northeast Florida and result in almost a billion dollars in economic benefit annually.

Read the whole thing.

Update:
Meanwhile the Port of Long Beach can expect a long, hard struggle to implement much needed modernization of the port’s aging Middle Harbor. They’ll need to work hard on their claim that an upgraded, modernized Middle Harbor would be more efficient and significantly “greener” than the existing facilities:

“This project recognizes that the only real way to effectively reduce pollution at the ports is to grow green and invest in new, more efficient terminal operations,” said Michele Grubbs of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.

Grubbs argues that simple fixes like reducing wait times at terminal gates, allowing for better flow of traffic on bridges and roadways, and putting more cargo on rail will dramatically reduce not only air pollution, but fuel consumption.

Cameron says on-dock rail capacity will increase dramatically.

“By doing this, the terminals are going to go from 5 or

6 percent on-dock rail now to about 27 percent,” Cameron said. “That takes a lot of trucks off the road.”

Still, environmental forces like the Natural Resources Defense Council that have successfully blocked both ports from moving forward with projects in the past, remain skeptical of CAAP’s impact on projects like Middle Harbor.

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