Dixie ports hope dredging, more space will beat congestion

US SOUTHEAST harbours face terminal congestion and chassis shortages that slow cargo flow, but dredging this year will come to the rescue by adding capacity, reports IHS Media.

Shippers, now hard-pressed to move cargo through now congested Savannah, the biggest Southeast gateway, hope that a projected expansion of the storage space will make a difference.

Georgia Ports Authority CEO Griff Lynch said that if the number of containers can fall to 60,000 in early 2022, then the port can knock out two or three of the anchored vessels per week.

By getting the inventory number lower, GPA can discharge vessels faster because they won¡¯t have to worry about running out of places to put discharged boxes.

"I think its possible we can make significant progress after Chinese New Year, but I can't promise that we'll be able to, because I just don't know," said Mr Lynch.

The Port of Charleston is taking on more cargo from customers bypassing Savannah due to the congestion, but ocean carriers have been unwilling to use the new Hugh K Leatherman Terminal until a legal dispute with the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the South Carolina Ports Authority (SC Ports) is settled in federal court.

At present, only Hapag-Lloyd calls at the Leatherman facility, the first new container terminal to come online in the US since 2009.

Said SC Ports CEO Jim Newsome: "With ships waiting anchored at other ports, it's a shame that we have capacity in a new terminal that¡¯s being underutilised. What is optimum and most desirable for us is to have three or four weekly services calling Leatherman."

A sharp, unanticipated rise in volume is also partly to blame for the congestion. Laden container imports to the US southeast increased 19 per cent year on year in the first 10 months of 2021, driven by a 25 per cent jump in throughput at Savannah.

Compared with the same period in pre-pandemic 2019, total imports through the region rose 13 per cent and 23 per cent in Savannah. Import volumes also grew by double-digit percentages in Charleston (21.5 per cent) and Virginia (26.9 per cent) compared with both 2019 and 2020.

New capacity and deeper harbours coming online should help ports on the southeastern seaboard handle more volume effectively.

Dredging projects will be completed in Charleston, Jacksonville, and Savannah in 2022, according to their respective port authorities. Channels will be deepened to 52 feet in Charleston and to 47 feet in Savannah and Jacksonville. Dredging will wrap up in March in Savannah, in mid-summer in Jacksonville, and in early fall in Charleston.

Alongside the dredging project, Jacksonville expects berth improvements to be completed in 2022 to allow SSA Marine's Blount Island Terminal to handle two postpanamax vessels simultaneously. About one-third of the construction project to add 93 acres to the SSA-operated terminal will be completed in 2022, and all the work is projected to be done by 2024.

The Port of Virginia will use federal funds in 2022 to begin dredging its inner harbor to 55 feet, a project estimated to take two years to complete. The channel will also be widened to allow two vessels to pass side by side, which is not possible today.

Both CSX and NS railways will build the trains in Savannah¡¯s new on-dock Mega Rail Terminal, a US$218 million yard that opened in late 2021. The final overhead cranes to serve CSX will be delivered and assembled by the end of 2022.

The Dillard Yard and Statesboro Airport pop-up sites, both of which are less than an hour from the port, are not rail-served locations and therefore will require drayage.

https://www.shippingazette.com/menu.asp?encode=eng

2022/1/28 22:35:23