GPA surpasses 4m teus at Savannah

For the month of December, Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) handled 323,000 teus, up 10.6% or 31,000 teus, making it the busiest December in GPA’s history.

“This is the first time we’ve handled more than 4 million TEUs in a 12-month period, which is an important milestone for Savannah,” said GPA executive director Griff Lynch. “These numbers clearly show that Georgia has the fastest growing and most critical port in the Southeast.”

“Savannah is double the size of the next largest port in the region, highlighting Georgia’s growing role as a gateway for American cargo,” Mr Lynch said. “Similarly, there is no deepening project more significant in the nation at this time than the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project.”

Releasing his fiscal year 2018 budget proposal, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal allocated US$35m in additional support for the deepening, for a total of US$301m in state funds. Currently, there are three dredges working in the Savannah River. The project is scheduled for completion by the end of 2021.

Lynch reported the Port of Savannah’s total trade for 2017 reached a record 35m tonnes of cargo, an increase of 3.8m, or 12%.

Capacity at Savannah is set to be increased by the Mason Mega Rail terminal project, which aims to double Garden City Terminal’s rail lift capacity to 1m containers per year. US$3.5m is also being spent on updating ship-to-shore cranes to allow the port to move nearly 1,300 containers per hour over a single dock.