Tag: US ports

The Port of Virginia announced the successful completion of the US Department of Agriculture’s Southeast In-Transit Cold Treatment Pilot program. This program will enable importers of perishables from South American countries to move their cargo across the Port. With cold treatment, perishable fruit imports have their pulp brought to a certain temperature for a period of time, in order to comply with USDA quarantine requirements.

Jacksonville Port Authority (JAXPORT) announced that JAXPORT has achieved its best ever January container volumes, with overall container movements increasing 16% over the same period last year. About 121,400 TEUs moved through JAXPORT in January 2019. The Port is now focused on the Jacksonville Harbor Deepening project, which is scheduled to be complete in 2023

The Port of Long Beach fluctuated near record container cargo levels to begin the new year. As the Port announced, it recorded a 0.1% decrease in comparison to its record January of 2018, which was also its busiest year. During January, dockworkers handled 657,286 TEUs. As for imports, they totaled 323,838 TEUs, down by 0.3%. Exports were also reduced 2.7% to 117,288 TEUs.

The Port of Virginia continues to move near-peak season cargo volumes. The port’s container volume for January was 240,111 TEUs, or 134,638 containers, an increase of 8.9% compared to last year. Fiscal 2019 to date, total TEU volume is up 2.8% or 47,745 TEUs, i.e 18,365 containers. The average traditional turn times at both terminals at VIG and Norfolk International Terminals were at 41.8 and 52.6 minutes.

Texas COLT, a proposed joint venture among Enbridge, Kinder Morgan, and Oiltanking, announced that it has submitted an application with the US Maritime Administration to construct and operate a deepwater crude oil export port located off the coast of Freeport, Texas. The submission with MARAD starts the application process for Texas COLT which is expected to be in-service by 2022.

Following announcement that it set a new container volume record in 2018, the Port of new Orleans (Port NOLA) now informed that it also saw a new record in 2018 with 1,182,111 cruise passenger movements, up 2.3% compared to a year ago.

The US Georgia Ports Authority has launched a Big Berth/Big Ship program, expected to allow the Port of Savannah to simultaneously handle six 14,000 TEU vessels by 2024. The program was unveiled by GPA Executive Director, Griff Lynch, during the Georgia Foreign Trade Conference, which took place on 3-5 February. 

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Port Arthur Liquefaction Project, Texas Connector Project, and Louisiana Connector Project. The FERC staff concludes that construction and operation of the Projects would result in some adverse environmental impacts, but these impacts would be reduced to less-than-significant levels.

The Port of Houston announced that several records were broken in 2018, including that total tonnage at its that set a record of 35.7 million tons. This reflected an increase of 9% percent from 2017. Moreover, container twenty-foot equivalent units increased 10% to 2.7 million, which is a new record. The increased activity has led to a balance of imports to exports for the year of 50/50 import to export.

The Northwest Seaport Alliance released an economic impact report describing the benefits of marine cargo to the state of Washington. Namely, the ports of Seattle and Tacoma make up the fourth-largest container gateway in North America, and support 20,100 jobs and $1.9 billion in labor income. The marine cargo industry produced an average annual wage of $95,000 and supported $5.9 billion in business output.