North American ports

Construction at the Port of Virginia to increase capacity of the Norfolk International Terminals to 2.2 million TEU is nearly complete, with the final eight cranes to move containers onto trucks to be commissioned in July.

During Paul Cozza’s tenure as head of the North Carolina Ports Authority, container volume through the Port of Wilmington increased 25 percent and refrigerated volumes quadrupled.

Volume at the Port of Virginia’s inland port in Richmond has jumped this year because it serves BCOs who have thrived during the pandemic amid limited restaurant options and a rise in e-commerce orders.

Carriers’ container volumes in the US-Asia trades declined in the first four months of 2020 and are expected to remain below last year’s volumes through the peak season.

The latest federal funds for the Port of Houston will go to restoring 2,700 linear feet of wharf and upgrading 84 acres of yard space at Barbours Cut Terminal.

Steady exports so far this year mean containerized US resin, an important backhaul cargo for ocean carriers, could see slight growth this year.

Port Tampa Bay has received almost $20 million in a federal grant to help construct a second 1,300-foot berth and a 30-acre container yard, key elements of its plan to increase capacity to handle three Asian direct services.

The Port of New York and New Jersey’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic went beyond just its physical footprint, working with neighboring states to ensure clear communication of essential service status to warehouses and distribution centers.

William Doyle, who served two terms on the Federal Maritime Commission, has been named executive director of the Maryland Port Administration, taking charge of the Port of Baltimore amid terminal and intermodal improvements.

All 10 of the busiest US cargo ports registered declines in container volumes in early 2020, with only modest improvement forecasted for the second half of the year due to a muted peak season.

A group of 10 maritime bodies argues for accelerating the pace of port data standardization and adoption of modern, single-window systems, among a list of other initiatives.

The main concern for US resin producers in 2019 was an increase in Chinese import tariffs, but that has been overshadowed by macro-economic concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With nine working tracks unveiled at the Port of Savannah’s Mega Rail Terminal Thursday, the Georgia Ports Authority is nearly finished with Norfolk Southern's portion of a large intermodal rail yard.

Norfolk Southern Railway has begun on-dock rail service from the Port of Baltimore, replacing an offsite yard, as part of a larger effort to make intermodal more attractive to BCOs using the port.

Increased import tariffs on Chinese-made toys in 2019 caused some shippers to shift sourcing to Vietnam, accelerating the diversion of those cargoes from Los Angeles and Long Beach to ports on the East and Gulf coasts.

With schools and retailers shut down across the country, imports this summer of back-to-school items and holiday season goods may be much lower than in prior years.

Congressional representatives of New York and New Jersey this week sent a letter to House and Senate leaders in support of $3 billion in financial aid for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The savings afforded by the safe harbor tax credit has US solar energy developers rethinking traditional project logistics processes, purchasing and importing materials much earlier in the construction cycle.

Port Everglades is seeking more funding to dredge and improve infrastructure in order to handle larger vessels on the north–south and east–west lanes.

John Reinhart, the CEO of the Virginia Port Authority, will retire from his position in March 2021, capping a tenure in which volume grew from 1.9 million TEU to 2.2 million TEU and the expansion and semi-automation of its two main container terminals.

Most US ports have sufficient liquidity and debt service coverage, and should be resilient enough to handle at least a 20 percent decline in cargo volume, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

First Solar has opened a distribution center in South Carolina to handle solar panels, a growth industry in which US imports doubled last year.

While container volumes in Savannah were down a better-than-feared 6.7 percent last month, the Georgia Ports Authority is pessimistic about May and June.

With larger vessels visiting the East Coast on a more frequent basis, the South Carolina Ports Authority has inked a deal to let a stevedore consortium run dock operations in Charleston.

The years-long market share bleed from North America’s traditional West Coast container gateways continued in 2019, with Savannah, Houston and Prince Rupert the main beneficiaries.

Evergreen’s new transshipment service links New Orleans, Houston, and Port Everglades with the Caribbean via the carrier’s regional hub in Colon, Panama.

The US Federal Maritime Commission is signaling to the industry that the fairness of detention and demurrage fees should be viewed through a lens of whether they encourage the pickup of import containers and return of empties.

The need to widen the channel gained urgency last year when a group of non-container businesses that rely on the port expressed concerns their cargoes would be squeezed by the increasing size and number of container ships moving through Houston.

A new international distribution center in Houston blends US trucking and containerized imports as less-than-truckload carrier Averitt reaches deeper into US consumer markets.

The Port of Wilmington’s refrigerated storage expansion is part of a broader effort among US Southern and mid-Atlantic ports to increase their reefer volumes by adding storage capacity and handling fruit imports from South America

The Port of Virginia will temporarily suspend container operations in the Portsmouth Marine Terminal beginning May 3, a result of the dropoff in volume due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The South Carolina Ports Authority expects spring and summer import volumes to be quite depressed due to blank sailings related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The ports of Houston, Mobile, and New Orleans will likely find the strong growth they enjoyed in 2019 difficult to replicate this year as US ports confront the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on supply chains.

Officials at the Port of New York and New Jersey say they don’t expect port marine terminals and area warehouses to experience as much of a space crunch as they and other East Coast ports were anticipating as cargo from China increases over the coming weeks.

The Alabama State Port Authority has picked an industry veteran with experience in operations at the Port of Oakland and working at ocean carriers to lead the rapidly growing Port of Mobile into the future.

BCOs and drayage truckers need to document unreasonable detention and demurrage charges, but also not contribute to the problem, speakers toldl a JOC.com webcast.

Hapag-Lloyd says it will no longer absorb a contentious per-container charge levied on ocean carriers by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to raise tens of millions of dollars for road, rail, and other improvements.

The risk in the coming week is that more US retailers and manufacturers fail to pick up containers because warehouses are full or closed due to not being deemed essential service providers responding to coronavirus disease COVID-19.

The Port of Savannah will be closed to truckers on Saturdays this month due to blank sailings and BCOs unwilling to retrieve containers with stores and factories closed due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

APM Terminals Mobile is betting that a just-completed $50 million expansion will enable the terminal to more easily schedule big ships and handle rising cargo volumes.