Pressing need for US east coast port expansion
The Jasper Ocean Terminal is needed to keep pace with growth projections
Many US east coast ports will be unable to cope with spiralling cargo projections without setting significant expansion plans in motion, the US Army Corp of Engineers has warned.
The Corps’ is responsible for US ports’ major civil works such as dredging, and it is almost at the point of giving the go-ahead for the long awaited navigation deepening at the port of Savannah.
However, when the Corps’ Savannah District commander Colonel Jeff Hall spoke about the project last week at the Savannah Council of the Navy League, he added that projections of a 6% growth meant a volume of 17m teu in ten years.
“What it says to us all is that not only does the Savannah port need to be expanded, a lot of other ports on the East Coast need to be expanded. Also we believe based on that volume that probably the Jasper Ocean Terminal should be built as well," he said.
This follow hard on the heels of a report on the Jasper terminal released by the Joint Project Office. It said that the proposed co-owned port on the Savannah River has the potential to generate one million jobs and $9bn in tax revenue for Georgia and South Carolina by the year 2040.
However, the report warns that Georgia and South Carolina must put aside their differences and take advantage of long-term opportunities, especially those coming from the arrival of traffic from the Suez, or they will be in danger of losing the international cargo to other states offering “more capacity, greater efficiency and deeper harbours”.
The report added that the Jasper Ocean Terminal will help the two states reach upward of 19m teu through the three deep-water ports of Savannah, Charleston and Jasper. In 2008, the combined teu in Charleston and Savannah was 4.3m.
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