Its container volumes for the first six months of its financial year, to end March, were running 10% ahead of the year before, and a major dredging programme is due to start this summer.

Recent statistics from the Port of New York and New Jersey showed flat container volumes in 2008 – for the first time in 15 years – but that isn’t stopping the port authority’s plans to invest $246m in the facilities in 2009 alone. 

And Georgia Port Authority recently took delivery of four new super post-panamax cranes at the Port of Savannah – the latest phase in a major investment programme to double capacity at the Garden City Terminal.

All three port authorities and, clearly, their neighbours, have a firm eye on the opportunities that a wider Panama Canal will bring.

“We will be ready with a 50-foot-deep channel, enhanced rail terminal and roadway infrastructure, and expanded warehousing and distribution facilities to efficiently handle increased commerce anticipated when the Panama Canal expansion project is completed in 2014,” says Richard Larrabee, port commerce department director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Further south at Jaxport, Roy Schleicher, senior director, trade development and global marketing, says: “If a ship comes through the Panama Canal and calls Jaxport first, cargo unloaded here could be moved by rail to Chicago in two days – before the ship even arrives in Norfolk.”

Jaxport’s TraPac Container Terminal at Dames Point, opened in January, is handling the port’s first direct shipping connection with Asia, and has doubled Jacksonville’s container handling capacity.

Container volumes through the port totalled 1.8m tonnes in the six months October to March, 10% up on the same period the year before. While the volumes were below budget, they are very encouraging, says Mr Schleicher.

When the container terminal was signed off and under construction, everything was booming and Asia was still on double digit growth, he points out. “So everything was looking very rosy. Of course, by the time the container terminal was completed, things had dropped off – but from our personal standpoint, we are in pretty good shape.”

The jump in containers reflects the arrival of the New World Alliance service from Asia, now operating into the TraPac terminal.

“That is all new business to us which we didn’t have the year before,” says Mr Schleicher. “Some of this would have gone to the west coast, or to Savannah or Charleston. A lot of customers were shipping cargoes through other ports and trucking them right past Jaxport’s gates because there was no service here. It is easier to bring cargoes for Florida, the third most populous state, through Jaxport – and as well as that, we are moving cargo to Chicago, Memphis and elsewhere.”

In the past 18 months, almost 6m square feet of warehousing and distribution centres have been built in the vicinity of Jaxport: “There are a lot of people looking at this as an opportunity, with direct Asian services and the opportunity to expand,” says Mr Schleicher.

The New World Alliance has added a second weekly call at TraPac, with the introduction of a westbound call.

The NWA service from Asia through the Panama Canal calls Miami before Jaxport. From the US East Coast, it heads to Europe. “So we are able to offer inbound Asia cargo and outbound to Europe,” he says. The new call is on the return leg of a direct NWA Asia-New York service. Jaxport is the last port of call, loading exports for Asia, before the Panama Canal.

“From an export standpoint, a lot of customers have last-minute deliveries and can’t make Norfolk or Charleston but can make it into Jaxport as the last call.”

Jaxport is working on plans for a second new container terminal, following Hanjin Shipping’s decision to use the port as its East Coast hub. “Right now the economy is in downturn but the signs are that it is going to start coming back,” says Mr Schleicher. “And Hanjin wants to be in a good position when things come back strongly. This business is going to pick up again and it will be good to have the facility ready.”

The Hanjin terminal, covering about 90 acres and with room to expand, will take about two years to build, following an estimated one-year approvals process.

Meanwhile, CMA CGM is planning to start a service from Asia next month which will include a call into Jaxport, and other East Coast ports, before heading on to Tangier and Jebel Ali, before continuing round the world to Asia. That will give Jaxport further inbound Asian cargo capacity, and export opportunities to Africa and the Middle East.