SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The Port of Savannah plans a $410 million overhaul of certainly one of its sprawling terminals to make room for loading and unloading larger ships while focusing its business almost exclusively on cargo shipped in containers.
The Georgia Ports Authority’s governing board approved the project Monday under a plan to expand Savannah’s capability for cargo containers by greater than 50% by 2025.
“We’re taking the Georgia ports from a Southeast gateway to a world gateway,” said Griff Lynch, executive director of the authority, which has seen over a decade of explosive growth on the state-owned seaports in Savannah and Brunswick.
It means major changes for Savannah’s 200-acre (81-hectare) Ocean Terminal, which currently handles most of Georgia’s breakbulk cargo reminiscent of lumber, paper and steel. Those operations will move throughout the next 12 months to the Port of Brunswick about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Savannah.
Ocean Terminal will likely be converted to handling cargo in containers — large metal boxes used to maneuver goods from consumer electronics to frozen chicken by ship, train or truck. The terminal’s berths will likely be upgraded with room to service two large ships concurrently using eight latest ship-to-shore cranes, at a further cost of $163 million.
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The changes come as U.S. seaports including Savannah, the nation’s fourth-busiest container port, have spent greater than a 12 months scrambling to maintain up with a surge in imports that left ships piled up offshore waiting to dock. Mass traffic jams off the West Coast caused shippers to divert cargo to Savannah and other ports along the East and Gulf Coasts.
That resulted in Savannah handing a record 5.8 million container units of imports and exports across its docks within the 2022 fiscal 12 months that ended June 30. That volume was just shy of Savannah’s current capability of 6 million container units.
The influx of cargo has begun to subside amid inflation and a shift to increased consumer spending on travel and services versus retail goods. Still, Savannah’s port saw its two busiest months ever in August and October. And it still had 19 ships waiting offshore Monday morning. Lynch said he expects continued growth, just at a slower pace, because the backlog subsides.
The port authority’s plan so as to add capability for a further 3 million container units by 2025 would give Savannah more respiration room when the subsequent cargo crush arrives. As Ocean Terminal undergoes its transformation, a newly expanded cargo berth will open next summer at Savannah’s foremost container terminal.
“That is going to get us back to more of a traditional schedule so far as capability, where we try to remain at about 80% so we’ve go room for growth,” said Joel Wooten, the port authority’s board chairman. “It will help the state of Georgia and the entire Southeast.”
Lynch said private terminal operators will still move some breakbulk cargo through the Savannah port, which may even proceed to handle military equipment shipped overseas and back as needed by Army units at neighboring Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield.
The expanded Ocean Terminal berths will likely be inbuilt phases, with the primary opening in 2025 and the second in 2026, Lynch said. He said converting an existing terminal to handle large container ships will likely be more efficient than constructing a brand latest one, which might take as much as five years.
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